Sandstorm
by whistleonwild
Summary: Slash. The life and times of a crippled gunslinger and an all too healthy mastersmith. Series of drabbles using the 100 Theme Challenge.
1. 001: Introduction

**1: Introduction**

Corosa strongly disliked the Morroc desert, for all the obvious reasons and more than that. He hated how _alive_ it seemed, sandstorms swirling and crackling with electricity, dunes hopping away and drifting of their own accord, wind not only howling, but whistling and laughing and mocking and jeering at all and sundry. He hated the whole contradictory aspect of the place. Burn by day, freeze by night. A landscape that seemed as enormous as the oceans because there was never any end to it, yet also as closed in as a closet because one could never see the sky for all the sand. A place where life both thrived and died at the same time.

It was, he thought, almost a reflection of the entirety of Rune-Midgard in miniature. Rune-Midgard was not exactly his favorite place either, but unlike the Morroc desert, he had no choice in whether he wished to stay in Rune-Midgard or not. The only way out was death.

Corosa took a drink from his flask and reflected on how there was no place on this earth where he felt comfortable. In fact, come to think of it, if he was forced to stay in one place forever, he would have chosen the desert. At least there were no buildings here. Nor were there many people. And it was possible to survive, if you knew the right places.

Corosa was just putting his flask away when he saw a giant shadow lumber out of the curtains of sand.

He scrambled to his feet and dodged over to the other side of the boulder. Yet another reason why he strongly disliked the desert; the sand kept getting into his guns and he could barely shoot with enough accuracy to hit something right in his face, leaving his life to depend entirely upon his speed and the stupidity of the various beasts living around here.

But the monster, whatever it was, did not come towards him. It had not even noticed him. Instead it sniffed at the ground, then swept its head around and bounded off to the left. For a moment the sand cleared up enough for Corosa to make out the shape of a wolf.

He had seen the desert wolves here, but none of them were _that_ large.

Corosa retreated slowly, walking backwards as to make sure that the wolf did not change its mind. It turned, once, giant head facing his way, but more as if to snort at him in amusement than to come after him.

It whipped its head back around in the direction it was going, head snapping out as hind legs coiled and leapt.

Over the whistling of the wind, Corosa heard a distinctly human scream.

The sound froze him in his tracks and he put a hand over his eyes as a shield against both sun and sand. But all he could see from here was the giant wolf, leaping and lunging in a demented dance, neck stretching and jaws snapping at something too tiny and too indistinct for Corosa to see. Hear, though. The howls the wolf made blended in too well with the howls of the wind. A human's scream was an entirely different matter.

Corosa yanked out both his guns. Perhaps they were more likely to fly off into the sand than into the wolf itself, but if worst came to worst he could try shoving one into the wolf's eye.

In other matters he was luckier. The winds were blowing towards his back. He did not have to fight against them as he struggled through the sands.

His foot slipped and he crashed into the ground, left leg swallowed up to the hip by soft sand and right leg quickly following. Swearing, Corosa flipped himself onto his back and fought his way out, spitting out dust and hacking as it dried him out, grain by grain.

There was another scream in the air when he fell again and clutched at the ground to find hard stone beneath his fingertips. One of the veins of rock worming their way through the desert. Corosa scrambled up onto it and drove onwards towards the wolf, now close by.

It caught his scent and spun.

Sunlight gleamed off something below it. Corosa only saw the glint for a split second before the metal it was reflecting off slammed down into the wolf's left paw.

"_Shoot the damn thing, will you?_" someone screamed at him as means of introduction.

Corosa jerked his hands up and pulled the triggers. Both bullets made it out, plunging into the wolf's fur between its eyes. It screeched and threw itself at Corosa before he could get himself out of the way.

His head slammed back into the stone road, and he felt his forearm rupturing, the sound of bone splintering loud and clear in his ears. A thunk followed afterwards but no pain came with it. He opened his eyes to see someone ripping an axe out of the wolf's left ear. Blood spouted out and soaked the man in a flood of red, and that was the last of him that Corosa saw before the monster smashed its paw into the mastersmith.

Corosa just barely managed to squirm slightly to the side, but he could raise his good hand, cock the hammer back, and pull the trigger, blasting another bullet into the wolf's shoulder. This time it ignored him. Too busy dealing with the mastersmith, who was back up again and had just swung his axe into its flank.

His fingers were shaking as he fired off another shot. Maybe it missed, but the wolf was so big that it was unlikely. Corosa did not bother to find out before he gave in to the temptation to curl up around his snapped arm.


	2. 002: Misfortune

(**AN**: This is a rather jumpy series, not 'continuous'; as in, the chapters do follow after one another in chronological order, but not necessarily _right_ afterwards.

…I don't think I'm making sense so I'll shut the hell up now. :D)

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**002: Misfortune **

"You right-handed?" the mastersmith asked, looking up at Corosa.

Corosa didn't have it in him to summon up his voice. He nodded instead, and bit his lip bloody as the mastersmith lifted his right arm up.

"Ah, _fuck_. I can barely see." The other man had a level voice, but it sounded as if he was speaking through clenched teeth. Corosa couldn't be sure. Both of them had hidden themselves behind layers of clothing as protection against the desert. The only thing Corosa could see of the mastersmith were his eyes, and vice-versa.

Corosa clamped down on the inside of his cheek as the man accidentally jolted his arm. Neither of them knew anything about healing. Corosa doubted that he'd finish this day with two arms.

"Hold your arm up. Still can't see."

Corosa was trying to _not_ look, but he did as the man asked, gripping his broken arm around the elbow and lifting it up to chin level. Now that it was right in front of his eyes, he could see that the bone had splintered and torn right through his skin.

"I thought gunslingers were faster than that," the other man said.

Corosa grimaced. "I…am the exception, I suppose."

"Huh. Guess so. This is far out from Einbroch, ain't it? And that was a fucking _mutant_." The mastersmith pulled back in an attempt to realign the fracture, but pain ripped up Corosa's arm and he jerked away.

"Stupid," the man said, growling curses under his breath. "I might as well chop this off for you right now. Don't move this time."

Corosa braced himself, almost reaching for the rock behind him before he remembered that it would probably burn his other hand off. The mastersmith drew back on his forearm, slower than before. Corosa clenched his teeth together and screwed his eyes shut.

Something cracked.

"Oh shit."

Corosa opened his eyes only to see that though the bones were back in position, the mastersmith had managed to snap off a section of the upper half. Before Corosa could swear at him, the mastersmith slid his fingers into the open wound and drew the broken piece out. Corosa shut his mouth and turned away as the man set it back in place.

"I don't know," the mastersmith said, after a long silence. "I think we might be better off just chopping your arm off. Sand's all over the place. It's going to get infected."

"I'll get out. Find a priest." Corosa didn't even know how deep they were in the desert now.

Corosa's companion voiced the same worry. "You think you can get out fast enough?" he asked as he uncorked a flask and trickled water over Corosa's arm, washing blood and sand away. The sand came right back.

"If I start moving now," Corosa answered. Maybe."

"Not so fast. You sure as hell aren't going to walk around with your arm hanging open like that. Here, we better find some place out of the sand–"

Corosa shook his head, momentarily silencing the other man.

The other recovered quickly. "Why the hell not?"

"No time," Corosa muttered. He tried to draw his arm away in order to bandage it himself, but the pain of moving stopped him immediately.

"Hell. It'll only take a few minutes."

"That's a lot of time in this place."

The mastersmith muttered a few choice words to himself, then said, "You have money? I'll bet you that by the end of today, you're not going to have that arm anymore."

Corosa gave a hollow laugh. He'd never been good at betting.

The mastersmith ripped Corosa's torn-up sleeve off and into several strips, brushing off as much of the sand as he could. As he began to wrap the makeshift bandages around Corosa's arm, he said, "You better hope we can hop on one of those wolves and get them to ride us out of here. I ain't kidding about that bet."

Corosa wondered if now was the time to start believing in gods. And make a humble request for them to teleport a high priest over as soon as possible.

It did not take long for the bandages to become blood-stained, but it was the best the mastersmith could manage at the moment.

"Shit. What the hell am I supposed to do now?" the man asked.

"Leave it. I'll manage." Corosa vaguely recalled arm slings, but he didn't want to waste anymore time. "You know how to get out?" He himself had lost all sense of direction after the wolf had been driven off and the mastersmith dragged him away.

"I…think," the mastersmith answered.

The pause was enough to make Corosa start doubting that he'd even _survive_, one-armed or not.


	3. 003: Horror

**003: HORROR**

"I'm not going back in," Corosa growled as the mastersmith yanked him closer by the collar of his shirt.

"I'd like to see you try to stop me," the man hissed back. "Last time I checked, I wasn't the one with a broken arm here."

Corosa slammed the fist of his good hand into the side of the mastersmith's head. The mastersmith did not let go but he did flinch, giving Corosa enough of an opportunity to yank himself away. The effort sent pain jolting back up his injured arm, though, and the mastersmith was back on him in a second.

"What the hell is _wrong_ with you?" he demanded. "Do you _want_ to be a crippled gunslinger for the rest of your life?"

"Rather that than go back in," Corosa said, helplessly, with no idea of how to explain. Fear was not something you could put into words.

"What, are the priests groping you or something?"

"It's not the priests." Corosa shook his head to get the rain out of his eyes. He was hooded and cloaked but it seemed like the oceans had decided to up and dump themselves upon Izlude today.

"What is it, then?" The mastersmith began to drag him back towards the city. Corosa swore at him and yanked himself away again, then collapsed against the nearest tree, teeth clenched in pain.

The other man made to come back after him, then stopped and hesitated. It was not obvious as to what he was looking at from under his hood. Not until he opened his mouth.

"_You've fucking broke your arm all over again!"_

Corosa winced. That wasn't quite true. He had been asleep the whole while, but he thought he hadn't been in Izlude for more than a day and a half. His arm hadn't had time to heal completely. He hadn't re-broken it, he'd simply made the initial injury worse.

The truth was not much better than the mastersmith's accusation.

"You _seriously_ jumped out the damn window?"

Corosa nodded. It was not the smartest decision of his life but the doors had been blocked by the priests. They had not expected him to hurl himself down from two stories up.

"I thought that was just a fucking rumor! Shit, what sort of brainfart gave you _that_ brilliant idea? I didn't drag your ass all the way out of the desert to let you commit suicide!"

Corosa tried to point out that he was still alive, but the pain stopped him from saying anything more.

The mastersmith swore loudly and ripped his cloak off his shoulders, throwing it over Corosa and dashing off back into Izlude before Corosa could do or say anything more.

The lightning had arrived by the time the mastersmith came back, half-leading and half-dragging a priest with him. If either of them said a word, Corosa did not hear. The thunder was too loud.

He watched in a daze as the priest knelt down and picked his arm up. The open wound had not closed; it never had. It had been in the process of closing, but Corosa had torn it open in his mad dash out of Izlude. The injury looked worse than it had on the day he'd first broken it. Far worse.

Judging by the way the priest's mouth was twisted downwards, it seemed as if there was not much to be done about it.

"We need to get you out of the rain," the priest said, giving Corosa a pointed look.

Corosa shook his head, panic rising again. He'd rather they amputate him than take him anywhere near Izlude again.

"You–" The mastersmith stopped himself, but that one word alone held a lifetime's worth of annoyance in it. In a calmer tone of voice he said, "I can set up a tent."

"No," Corosa said, hoarsely.

The mastersmith's patience snapped. He made a fist with one hand as if to hit something. "The hell is the matter with you? You–"

"Quiet. I need to concentrate," the priest said absent-mindedly, still inspecting Corosa's arm.

The mastersmith fell silent and walked away. Corosa could barely see his silhouette, even though he couldn't have been more than five yards away.

"I can't guarantee that you'll keep your arm," the priest said, after an agonizing silence.

"Do what you can." Corosa could deal with the consequences.

The priest gave him a clearly dubious look, but put his hands over the open wound all the same and began to pray, hands glowing. The pain started to fade almost immediately. Corosa gave the priest a closer look; he had had his fair share of dealings with priests, and few were as skillful as this one. But the man looked no different from anyone else.

Corosa heard the squelch of mud and looked up to see that the mastersmith was back.

For the first time, he could see the man's face clearly. Narrowed eyes. Brows knitted together. Mouth set in a scowl. Square jaw and scraggly beard. Blond-brown hair that looked like it had a life of its own.

Corosa nearly yanked himself away from the priest in his surprise. "You…"

"What?" the mastersmith asked, voice sour. "If I look like something right out of Glast Heim, it's because of the rain."

"No." Corosa reached up with his good hand, careful not to disturb the priest's work, and drew his own hood back.

The mastersmith dropped to his knees and almost shoved the priest out of the way in order to get a closer look.

"_Fuck_. That trip through the desert must've really screwed up my eyes. You. Priest-man." The mastersmith tapped the priest on the shoulder, heedless of the fact that he was still working his magic. The priest spared enough time to look over. His expression was strained.

"Look at us both and tell me what you see," the mastersmith said.

"Twins," the priest answered, and went back to work.

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**AN**: I swear to god that this is not and will never be incest, or twincest, or selfcest, or anything of the sort.

…Er.

It won't be incest or twincest, anyway.

Thanks for the reviews:D


	4. 004: Do Not Disturb

**004: Do Not Disturb**

Contrary to what the two nearby thought, Corosa was fully awake. Or, at least, awake enough to hear what they were saying. The sound of their voices was the most he could absorb from the outside world at the moment.

"Are ya ever going to leave him alone?" That sounded like the mastersmith, to Corosa, because if he listened carefully enough they _did_ share the same voice.

"And why would I be as stupid as to do that?"

"Seems to me like there are a lot of other injured-like, too."

"None of them as bad off as this."

"Why, what's the matter?"

Corosa stopped listening then, falling back into an uneasy sleep.

-------

When he woke up later, two things became apparent to him at once: the fact that he could not see, and the fact that it felt like someone was twisting his arm off. Corosa made a noise somewhere between a curse and an uncontrolled scream, all at once trying to move, grab his fractured arm, sit up, and rip off whatever was over his eyes.

"Oh, _shit_--"

Someone heavier than him slammed him back down, rendering him immobile. "Damn, maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all. Dammit! _Oy! --Someone get that priest back in here!"_

One word drilled its way in through Corosa's mind, even past the pain.

_In?_

Again he tried to pull the blindfold off, but another hand closed around his and yanked it away.

"Can't be doing that now." It was the mastersmith.

"Where?" Corosa demanded. It was hard to make much of his surroundings when he could not see.

"We haven't moved you." The voice was almost _too_ sure, _too _honest.

"You _have_," Corosa insisted, panic rising like bile in his throat. He tried to remember what happened that rainy night, but could not recall anything.

He wrenched himself free and slammed his palm upwards, hitting the mastersmith's face. Teeth dug into his skin--were they teeth? They felt too sharp. The mastersmith yelped in surprise. Corosa would have lashed out with a second strike if it were not for the pain. The other man seized the opportunity, using it to trap Corosa's hand against the wall.

_Wall._

"Get me out of here," Corosa hissed. In his hysteria he tried to swing his right hand up, and sent a fresh wave of agony screaming up his arm.

Noises. Edge of the world. Between life and death. Echoes of people long dead, the roar, the splintering, the cracking. Timber and oak and stone, saturated in anger and hate and an overwhelming lust for revenge. All here again. All back. All around him. And this time he could not run.

_"Let me out!"_ Corosa's voice crescendoed into a scream.

"Can't do that," the other said. "Now will you fucking--oh gods, _finally_."

Footsteps. A new voice. "Did he--"

"_Yes_. Now get him back to sleep before he kills himself!"

Corosa made one last effort to break free before his mind plunged back into unconsciousness again.

-------

At some point in his sleep, Corosa's mind wormed its way out of the dreamworld; that, or bits and pieces of his surroundings wormed their way in.

_"What the hell are you doing?_

_"I don't like the looks of this."_

_"No shit. It looks like ass."_

_"That's obviously a sign that it's not healing."_

_"You are shitting me. After all this time? All that trouble we went through trying to keep him asleep? And it's getting _worse_?"_

_"You spent too long in that desert. Breaking it again didn't help."_

_"Can't you do something about it?_

_"I don't know."_

The real world faded away again and Corosa returned to dreams and nightmares that would slip into oblivion as soon as he woke up.

-------

"Why doesn't it hurt?" Corosa asked, finally admitting to himself that he was confused. He'd been confused ever since he woke up to find himself not inside the city, where he'd _thought_ he'd been, but in the surrounding forest. Far from any sign of human civilization, save for the mastersmith, who had gotten him into this in the first place.

Neither of them had brought the change in setting into their short conversation. Yet.

And nor had they ever discussed their appearances.

"What'd he do?" Corosa asked, referring to whoever had been taking care of him.

"Don't ask me," the mastersmith asked. He had been irritated ever since Corosa woke up, too, and it did not take much for Corosa to realize that the other man had been having problems. With exactly _what_ was a mystery.

Corosa glanced at his arm, wrapped in bandages, and decided that 'a priest did something' was a good enough answer. But he could not look away. His curiosity about how it was healing was getting the better of him. He only turned his head when he began to feel slightly sick, his imagination getting carried away. Watching the grass sway in the wind was infinitely better to pondering the state of his arm.

Next to him, the mastersmith pulled out an unlit cigarette and started chewing on it.

"Things aren't looking good," he said, folding his hands behind his head. "You obviously ain't having any problems with blood loss now, but the arm itself..."

"What?" Corosa asked, when the other did not continue.

The smith shrugged. "We'll see in a few more days. The priest thinks he might be able to do something about it."

When enough time had passed for them to move on to another topic, Corosa said, "I'm not going back there."

His statement elicited a hollow laugh. "The hell. You're insane. Try running, I dare you."

Corosa pushed his hair out of his eyes. "I _can't_ go back in." The knowledge that he would be, very soon, was enough to make him feel nauseous.

"You won't even _know_ you're back there." The smith had transferred his cigarette from his mouth to his hands, weaving it in and out between his fingers, but still refusing to light it.

Corosa chewed on the inside of his cheek. "You can't do this," he said, words monotonous. He knew, too, that he was in no position to defend himself. That would be a different matter if he was armed, but he had no idea what had happened to his weapons after he'd been brought into Izlude.

"Listen," the mastersmith said, voice abruptly becoming sharper. He flicked the cigarette away. "I'm the one who got you into this shit in the first place--if you try blaming that wolf, I swear I'll bash your head in. Okay? Good. And since I got you into this, I swear I'll get you out, too. Whether you like it or not."

Corosa bit back his reply that the mastersmith was only making things worse.

-------

"What'd you say?"

"Nothin'."

A pause, and a long sigh of frustration.

"I thought you--"

"I sort of did. But I just couldn't. It's a hard thing, you know." Then, "This isn't going to end well."

"I'd suggest you stay out of his way, then."

-------

When Corosa finally came to again, he could see nothing. Again. But more important than even that, he felt nothing where before he had at least felt pain, and that was what sent him into a panic.

Before he could move, someone had pushed him back down by his shoulders. There was a slight depression in whatever he was lying, suggesting that whoever was holding him down had straddled him as well. Just in case.

_"Why the hell do you keep waking when you aren't supposed to?"_ the mastersmith's voice demanded.

"I can't - " Corosa swallowed, and, so as to not alarm the smith, _slowly_ reached for his right arm.

He found nothing. Not until he walked his fingers upwards. Jolts of pain streaked through his body when he finally brushed against the stump of his arm.

They'd cut it off at the elbow.

For a moment, Corosa's mind went perfectly blank.

"_You_--" he snarled, the word ripping itself out of his throat, stripping flesh as it went.

Corosa whipped his good hand up in the hardest backhand he could manage. His knuckles smashed against the mastersmith's jaw, but the smith only swore and spat. He did not loosen his hold, or say anything in response. Not immediately.

The only sound in the room was their breathing. And the silence stretched on until Corosa wanted to hit him again.

"You didn't see it," the other man finally said, voice low. "The infection was spreading too fast. All they could do was slow it down, not stop it, and that wasn't going to do _shit_ for you. They couldn't let it keep going."

Corosa grabbed a fistful of the smith's shirt and yanked him close, teeth bared, but he could not think of anything to say.

The anger started to vanish. It disappeared, burying itself deep in his chest where all his anger went to fester.

"Then I'm done here," Corosa said, voice deadened, mind falling to blankness again.

A short pause. "I'll get you out."

Corosa felt his mouth twitch. He almost wanted to laugh.

His words became mechanical answers. "Thank you..."

"It's Satero."

"...Alright, Satero."

-------

**AN**: Updates will be sporadic for the next two weeks or so (as if they aren't already). Exams, yanno? D:


	5. 005: Silence

**005: SILENCE**

"So, are ya ever gonna talk to me again?" Satero asked, leaning over Corosa. They were both the same height when standing, but from Corosa's position sprawled out on the ground, the mastersmith towered over him.

Corosa shut his eyes again. "…No. Never."

Or at least not now. He hadn't been sleeping well for the past few nights, constantly jolted awake by pain when he mashed his amputated arm against something. He'd been dozing off just before Satero decided to confront him.

Satero laughed. "Ah, that's what I thought."

And a split second later Corosa found Satero's boot pinning him to the ground–thankfully, by his left shoulder. His eyes flew open.

With a grin, Satero said, "You and I, we gotta talk."

Corosa was just about to point out that he could talk very well _without_ Satero's foot on him, but the mastersmith continued before Corosa could interject.

"First of all, you've gotta do something about your arm," Satero said. Both of them glanced over at the limb in question.

It no longer pained Corosa as much as it had before, unless he wasn't careful and jabbed it against something. But worse than that was the sensation of still _having_ a full arm. At times he could feel phantom fingers moving, a missing forearm itching, non-existential bones cracking. It was infuriating, and constantly caused him pain. Corosa had not yet broken his habit of trying to do things with his right hand.

He looked back up at Satero. "There isn't much to do about it."

"Fuck that. Implants. Prosthetics. I was going to learn how to make 'em but I ran away before I did." As if reading Corosa's mind, Satero quickly went on before Corosa could ask _what _he'd run away from. "Don't tell me you're happy to be like this for the rest of your life."

"I fail to see where it concerns you," Corosa said, trying to shake his hair out of his eyes. "And I can talk without your foot on me."

"Sure as hell it concerns me. I'm the whole reason why you're a cripple now." At some point in time Satero had fished out another cigarette and was chewing on it again. "So, you planning to do something about it or not?"

"No." Corosa was not being wry this time. What mattered was that he could no longer shoot with his right hand, and no artificial limb was ever going to help him to regain that particular ability.

"Why not?"

"I don't see the point."

"Hell, look at yourself. You can barely do anything now, without your arm." Satero flicked the cigarette away. He'd literally chewed it to shreds. "Things'd be easier for you."

Corosa closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. "I think I can handle this."

"I think you're fucking insane. _Handle_ this? You can barely sleep." Satero put a little more weight on his foot, causing Corosa to flinch and grind his teeth together. Was the man doing that on _purpose_?

Whether that was the case or not, Corosa ignored the indignity for the time being and said, "It'll pass."

He'd gone through his share of injuries. The vast majority of them ended up in a few days' worth of sleepless nights. This one might end up in a few weeks' worth, but he'd get used to it in time.

"Huh." There was a very tangible _'we'll see'_ tacked on to the end, but Satero kept it silent.

A few more moments of awkward silence passed.

"I'd like to know when you plan to get off me," Corosa said, with a pointed look at the offending foot.

Satero pointedly ignored him again. "I still think that priest was wrong," he grumbled, closely scrutinizing Corosa. "We don't look _exactly_ the same."

Corosa thought that the resemblance was still close enough to be eerie. As far as he could tell, the only major difference between them was that Satero seemed perpetually cheerful.

"You ever had any weird past involving missing siblings?" Satero asked, raising an eyebrow. "'Cause _I_ sure haven't."

"None."

"Eh. That's good, I guess." The mastersmith frowned as if thinking, then shrugged, and finally stepped off.

By habit, Corosa tried to push himself up with his right arm. He jammed it into the ground, swore and clutched at the stump, and only managed to sit up after his ache started to subside. Above him, Satero snorted. Corosa bit back an irritated comment.

Satero crouched down beside him with a self-satisfied look on his face, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards as if he was trying to suppress a laugh. Corosa was sorely tempted to punch the man in his mouth, but instead he let his eyes flicker over to the bruise still visible on Satero's cheek. It'd been ugly a few days before, and still looked ugly now, but it was getting better.

"It still _hurts_." Satero might've been thirty but he could still sound like a whiny child when he wanted to. His pathetic act was almost convincing, if it weren't for the smirk plastered onto his face. Corosa suspected that Satero knew how guilty he felt for causing all this trouble. Surely the mastersmith had better things to do with his time than follow a crippled gunslinger around all day long. Though if that was the case, Satero certainly hadn't started complaining yet.

"My _shoulder_ hurts," Corosa grumbled, trying to massage it. He could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on, too.

"Yeah, two hundred pounds of mastersmith does that to you. Sorry." The smirk hadn't left Satero's face. Corosa found his apology unconvincing. Though he was inclined to change his opinion when Satero mellowed both his tone and expression, adopting a more concerned demeanor. "Need help there?"

Corosa shook his head. He hadn't meant his complaint to be taken seriously.

"We should start moving," he said, glancing up at the sky.

"What the hell do you plan to do for the rest of your life, anyway?" For once, Satero was frowning instead of grinning like a maniac. "The world don't have much use for a crippled gunslinger. You have a family or anything?"

"No." Corosa started to get to his feet. His children were dead before their time, and their mother, too. His own parents he'd abandoned himself a long time before. "You?"

"Hah. Never." Satero got up before him. "Say, if you didn't ever set foot in a city, what _did_ you usually do?"

"Nothing." Corosa had led quite an uneventful life following his escape from his house. He thought about that, realizing that if Satero insisted on tagging along, he wasn't going to adapt to the monotony easily. "You don't have to follow me if you don't want to."

"Are you shitting me? Arm aside, _I_ still want to figure out who the hell we are." Satero reached over and ruffled Corosa's hair, much to Corosa's discomfort.

"I can tell you that," Corosa grumbled as he started to walk away. "I'm Corosa. You're Satero."

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**AN: **OBVIOUSMAN TO THE RESCUE

lulz you guys have no idea how much I had to resist going "LONGCAT IS LOOOOOOOOOOONG" at the end there.


	6. 006: Pen and Paper

**006: PEN AND PAPER**

"The hell is that?" Satero asked, from out of nowhere as he always did. Corosa blinked in surprise, then looked up at the mastersmith hovering over his shoulder.

"Practice," he answered. He stopped writing, though, and slowly folded the paper up as best as he could. The only way he managed it was by substituting his teeth for his right hand.

"For what?" Satero snatched the paper away just as Corosa finished and unfolded it. The process took him much less than time than it had for Corosa to fold it up in the first place. Corosa was beginning to sorely miss the rest of his arm.

"Practice?" Satero repeated, eyes scanning the paper. "Don't look like it to me. Who's this to?"

"Practice, and a letter." Corosa considered trying to grab the paper back, but he felt too weak to make the effort. He scratched at his right shoulder. Phantom arm itching again. This was the best substitute he had, and it was not much of one.

"Eh? To who?" Satero flipped the paper over but was disappointed. It remained blank. He went back to the front side, going back to the start of the letter. "'Yara'? Huh. Girlfriend? Thought you said you didn't have any family."

"Not a girlfriend." Corosa pushed his hair out of his eyes, looking out towards the distance and frowning. "And she hardly counts as family."

"But she _is_." Satero plunked himself down in front of Corosa, blocking his view. It was a habit that Corosa was quickly coming to hate. Corosa didn't look at people when he was talking, but with Satero constantly getting in his way, there was little he could do about it. And unlike Corosa, the mastersmith insisted on staring straight at whoever he was conversing with. It was unnerving.

This time Corosa met his gaze and scowled. "My daughter. She hardly acknowledges her _own_ existence."

"Why didn't you tell me before? When I asked?" Satero didn't sound angry, but perhaps that was only due to self-control. If that was the case, Satero certainly had more composure than Corosa could ever hope to attain. The mastersmith seemed just as relaxed as usual. Admittedly, he didn't have his usual grin plastered all over his face.

"It's not something I like talking about." That was the safest answer. Not many enjoyed gossiping about their child's mental disorders.

Apparently, Satero did. "Why? What'd she do?"

"She drove herself mad." One of the Pronteran priestesses had attempted to explain the cause of it, but Corosa personally thought she had been just as insane. The woman had been convinced that his daughter's breakdown stemmed from the sin of lust. Corosa had gotten himself away, quickly. His wife would have insisted that Yara was a child who did not know sin; Corosa was simply more worried that insanity was contagious.

Corosa put his pen away and waited as patiently as he could for Satero to return his letter. But the mastersmith was reading it again.

"You didn't say anything 'bout your arm," Satero said while pulling at his bottom lip.

"She wouldn't care." Or even notice. Corosa had been writing to her once a month for a year and a half, and she had yet to reply. Most of his letters he did not send himself, but passed on to willing strangers to deliver from whichever city they stopped at next. As such, he did not entirely trust all of them to have done exactly that. That, and messenger birds were not exactly reliable. But he still believed that at least a few would have reached Yara after such a long period of time.

He had never expected her to write back. The last time he had seen her, she simply repeated an old nursery rhyme over and over again and never seemed to register his presence. Corosa had not stayed long.

"You didn't mention me, either. I'm hurt." Satero flashed a smile and folded the letter up. "How're you gonna deliver it? If you won't go find a city or something, I don't think you can still send it off with any ol' bird."

Corosa hesitated before answering. "I was hoping you would send it for me."

"What's with you and the cities, anyway? Never quite figured that one out," said Satero. He slipped the letter into pocket as he did so.

Corosa started to reach with the stump of his right arm, thought better of it, and seized Satero's wrist with his left hand instead. "I'm not done writing," he said, feeling slightly irritable. His writing had only taken up half the page and, if he remembered correctly, stopped mid-sentence. Satero evidently wasn't thinking.

"Oh? Whoops. My bad." Satero scratched his head and handed the letter back. The paper had just left his fingertips when he added, "Sorry for grabbing it from you, too."

"Mm." Corosa did not say anything more, trying to pick up his last train of thought.

"…You sure you don't want me to write for you?" Satero asked.

"This is practice," Corosa said for at least the third time. He set the paper down on the case storing all his possessions and started writing again.

It took him forever and a day just to finish a single word. Aside from being right-handed, he also found it impossible to hold the paper down. Before Satero had arrived, Corosa had made more than one dash for it as the wind blew it away.

He looked down at it and sighed. This was going to be one of the shortest letters written. It was hard to resist the temptation of simply _not_ writing; the only thing stopping him was his own conscience.

"Y'know, just _watching _you try to write is uncomfortable," said Satero, interrupting his thoughts. "'S really all that important to you?"

"Being able to use this hand is." They hadn't encountered any particularly aggressive monsters or people yet, but Corosa liked to believe that he still had a while to go before he died. Doubtless there would be a few more fights in between now and his death.

Fighting aside, simply making his way through life was hard now.

"Was thinking," Satero suddenly said. He tapped his fingers against Corosa's case to get his attention. "We should head for Einbroch."

"What for?" Corosa ignored Satero's hand and went on writing.

"That's where ya come from, right?"

"No." Corosa put the pen down and flexed his hand.

"So where?"

"Prontera." Corosa decided to give up on writing for the moment and picked at a hangnail instead.

"What?" This time, Satero knocked his knuckles against Corosa's case. "You're shitting me. We've already gone past Prontera."

As soon as Corosa looked up, Satero added, "I wasn't going to ask you to go in, anyway. Speaking of that, you never answered me."

Corosa tore hangnail off and watched a drop of blood squeeze itself out. "Had an encounter with some place. I'd rather not go through it again."

"That's all?" Satero stretched his arms out behind him. He arched an eyebrow at Corosa. Evidently he'd been hoping for more detail than that.

"Yes." Corosa felt no need to explain anymore.

He doubted that he'd be able to go into more detail than that, even if Satero had held a gun to his head.


	7. 007: Cat

**007: CAT**

"Oh, are you _shitting_ me? It's fluffy and it's _adorable_." Satero held the stray cat up, bringing it face-to-face with Corosa. Judging by the cat's expression, it was just as displeased by this treatment as Corosa was.

"Somehow, you're the last person I'd have expected that from." Corosa took a step back as the cat mewled.

"Hey, I like cats. And dogs. And other animals of all shapes and sizes." Satero put the cat down and gave it one of those rough but affectionate rubs that Corosa had never mastered. Corosa was the sort of person who poked furry things from as far away as possible, and hoped that the thing's owner would take it away soon.

Doubly so in this case. Corosa had a feeling that the 'thing' in question was staring at his amputated arm and sizing him up for dinner. Contrary to what he thought, it dropped the evil look and adopted a disdained manner instead, licking one paw and finally padding away to disappear further down the road.

"Alright, cat's gone, don't worry, it ain't going to tear your throat out." Now that the cat was no longer present to paw at, Satero settled for ruffling Corosa's hair instead. "Now what's this shit you're giving me about not getting any closer?"

Corosa ducked and took another step back. "Prontera's the place I mentioned before." And he'd rather not get too close again. If he could see the road to Prontera, then he was too close already.

"What? What happened there? Oh, it's back." Satero momentarily dropped his questioning to sweep the cat up off the ground again. This time, thankfully, he did not insist that Corosa cuddle it as well. That was for the best. The cat had something small and bloody in its mouth. The only thing Satero did about it was to glance down, shrug, and then go back to rubbing the cat's head.

The cat was little more than a clump of off-white fur. Add to that a squashed-in face, too-sharp claws, and a missing eye, and it was the downright evilest thing that Corosa had ever seen.

"So, what's wrong with Prontera?" The cat pawed at Satero's arm and he let it down again. It curled up at his feet and began the process of playing with the remains of its prey.

Corosa watched it, vaguely wondering what sort of pleasure it derived from batting around bloodied bits and pieces. "Because of that thing," he said.

Satero laughed. "Well, it reminds me of you."

"What?" Corosa blinked at the cat. He could find no resemblance whatsoever.

"Another amputee, apparently." Satero squatted down and prodded its stump of a tail. The cat flicked it away.

"I hardly think that's much to grieve over." Corosa set his case down and sat on it, with his back to the road.

Satero shrugged and sat back as well, stretching his legs out in front of him. The soles of his boots rested against the edge of Corosa's case. "Honestly now. Why not Prontera? Can't be all _that_ bad, there's thousands of people living and dying there."

"All that life does strange things to a city." Or at least Corosa thought so.

"Hn." Satero pulled at his lip, staring at Corosa with narrowed eyes. There was an unsettling similarity between his look and the cat's. "Like?"

"It..." He trailed off, then corrected himself. "I don't know."

But Corosa knew as soon as he'd said that first word, he was in trouble. Just for the slightest moment he'd sounded like it was possible to explain. And Satero was going to latch on to that.

However, Satero did not say anything more until the cat suddenly stood up and stalked off again. The action seemed to waken him.

"Why won't ya talk about, anyway? I think you're old enough to know that it's no use keeping a secret once someone knows you've got one."

Corosa scowled. He knew that he was at least old enough to know he was coming across as quite immature. But he could find no way of putting his story in such a way that it would _not_ send him hurtling back through _that_ hall of memories.

"I mean, if Prontera's where ya come from, that's where we oughta start," said Satero.

"What about you?" Corosa asked, picking at the linen wrapped around the stump of his right arm. The bandages had just been changed; neither of them were quite sure when they could be taken off completely, so they kept them on just to be on the safe side.

Satero shook his hair out of his eyes. "Don't come from nowhere, really. My family was always on the move. Never found a place they liked. Was born in Prontera, though. Didn't stay long."

"How long?" Corosa asked.

"Huh. Year or two, maybe. Don't remember anythin' about it." Satero started to fish around in his pockets, but apparently didn't find what he was looking for. He blew out his cheeks when his search came up empty-handed.

"Who were your parents?" Corosa asked. If Satero had only been there for a year or two, it wasn't likely that anyone Corosa knew would have mentioned the mastersmith's family, but it was worth a shot. Just to see if anything jogged a memory.

"Rachra and Elya Othara. Didn't love each other all that much, but they got on well enough." Satero shrugged. "Mother was a merchant, father was a blacksmith. Ringing any bells?"

"No." Neither the first nor last names sounded familiar.

"Eh. That's what I thought." Satero picked up a twig and chewed on its end. "So, back to this Prontera thing. This ain't going to work out if you refuse to come."

Corosa looked back at the road. "This is too close already."

"Yeah, that's the problem right there. I'm not leaving you out here alone--"

Corosa cut him off. "I'm hardly dependent on you." He was fully capable of taking care of himself, and had been doing exactly that for almost all of thirty-two years.

Satero spat the twig out. "Hah. I'd wager on that. With that arm?"

"Yes."

"Hell, whatever, that's not the point. The thing is, it's gonna be damn hard for me to figure things out if you won't come along." Satero's voice became noticeably sharper.

Corosa allowed himself to turn around and meet Satero's stare. "I'm not getting any closer than this."

Satero sighed and put a hand over his eyes. "Goddammit, why the hell _not_?"

Dead silence reigned.

Corosa was still trying to formulate a response when the sound of mewling reached their ears. They both looked up and saw the cat once more, sitting a few yards away, making pitiful noises at them.

"...Oy. Cat. Get me a cigarette, will ya? ...Oh, fine. Stupid thing." The cat had walked off as soon as Satero started talking.

Corosa just wished it would stop coming back. Very much like Satero's constant questioning of his past.

"It's none of your concern," he said, finally answering Satero. It was far from a satisfactory answer, but it was the only one that worked.

"Say that again. I can barely hear you over the sound of that there grasshopper _a thousand fucking miles_ away."

"I'm not stopping you from going into Prontera," Corosa said, though that hadn't been his original answer. "But you can do it without me."

"What, and then come back and find that you've lost a fucking leg, too? Maybe this time it'll be a mutant pori--"

"_No_."

There was apparently something in Corosa's voice that made Satero shut up. What could have become a full-blown fight trailed off into contemplative silence. Eventually Satero stood up and took a few paces away, with his back towards Corosa.

By the time Satero turned around, the forest's birdsong had started up again.

"Here," the mastersmith said, grinning. "Make you a deal. If you can catch that cat by the end of today, I'll leave ya alone about Prontera and go there myself. Otherwise I'm taking you with me, even if I gotta knock you out to do it."

"What?" Corosa was not amused in the least.

"You're gonna have to get over this thing of yours eventually," Satero said.

"_What_?" Corosa asked again, before realizing how much of an idiot he sounded.

Satero answered before he could correct himself. "The thing, you know, with the whole not-going-into-cities bit." He was speaking more slowly than before. Probably an effect of him controlling his temper.

Corosa made note of that and did his best to control his own, but he could not help but still feel irritable. "I've been handling things well enough _without_ having to overcome that."

"Yeah? So how the fuck did you lose your arm in the first--" Satero clamped his mouth shut and jammed his hands into his pockets. Then he continued in a calmer manner. "If you hadn't been such an ass about going into Izlude, this wouldn't have happened."

Corosa vaguely recalled an overheard conversation. Something about the extent of his injury being due to lingering too long in the desert. But he was not sure whether the whole thing had been a figment of his imagination, and chose not to bring it up in self-defense.

Satero's eyes flickered towards the battleaxe he carried around with him. It was a monster of a weapon, seemingly too big for even someone of Satero's size to wield. Yet somehow, he managed it. Corosa sometimes wondered why the man's arms hadn't fallen off yet.

Satero walked over to his weapon. "Hey, listen, if you don't take me up on my bet I'll fucking knock you out anyway."

"That's hardly fair," Corosa said, scratching his shoulder and narrowing his eyes at Satero. His phantom arm was starting to kick in stronger than before. This time it _hurt_.

"Life's a bitch." Satero picked up his axe and drove the blade into the ground, leaning on the shaft. "More than that, _I'm_ a bitch. Don't think I'll do it? I _will_. Maybe I won't have to knock ya out but I'll get you to that damn city whether ya like it or not."

Corosa did not take his eyes off Satero and did a quick comparison of the two of them. Satero was healthier, stronger, and was quite willing to back up his words. All of that was nullified if Corosa chose to pull out a gun and fire on him. But that was at the extreme. Last resort. Corosa did not mean to shoot to kill. But even so, any shot would be likely to end up in Satero's death, whether from blood loss or infection, and Corosa didn't want the mastersmith's chances of survival hinging on the chance that a priest would wander by.

But if it came to that...

Corosa was not going to take a step closer to Prontera, no matter what happened.

He groped for his handgun as he stood up. "I'll find your cat."

Satero looked between the gun and Corosa. "Don't shoot him. That won't count."


	8. 008: Breaking the Rules

**008: BREAKING THE RULES**

"I thought I told ya not to shoot it," Satero said, staring at the mangled body in something between horror and fascination.

"I see no point in that," Corosa said. Killing the thing had brought him no joy, but it was the only way he could have gotten it. And shooting it had been hard enough. He was not about to tell that to Satero, though. "As long as I managed it."

Satero turned his head around to stare. His expression was unreadable now, but judging by the long silence, Corosa had the impression that he was holding something in.

Satero jerked himself awake. "Sure ya managed it, but that was a _cat_. What the hell happens when you're fighting something bigger?"

"I run."

"Fuck that. Wanna go back and take that wolf on again?"

"And why would I go back there?" Corosa was certainly not going to throw himself into danger again.

"Listen, Corosa, the wolf's not the point. I'm talkin' in _general_. Anything bigger and faster than this and you're gonna be fucking dead." Satero's eyes flickered towards the cat.

Corosa had to concede. It was one of the many reasons why he was cursing the day that he met Satero. This test had only shown him that the mastersmith was right, and that living was going to be near-impossible without his right arm. He had a sneaking suspicion that if Satero hadn't stuck with him, he'd have been dead by now.

"What, nothin' to say?" Satero asked. Corosa did not have to look at him to sense the mockery.

"No," Corosa answered. "But whether you're right or not matters little. There's nothing we can do about it."

"Sure we fucking can. If you'd just stick around in the cities some more, there's no fucking _chance_ of you getting torn apart by some monster out here."

"Then I'd sooner die." Corosa wondered how many times he'd said that already.

Satero was thinking the same thing. He swore and picked up his axe, beginning to walk off. "I swear if I hear you say that one more time, _I'll_ kill you."

"You're taking this too personally," Corosa said as he followed the mastersmith. The flies had been gathering around the cat's body for a while now. He was not interested in seeing what else would follow.

"'Personally'? What the _fuck_ are you on about?" A definite outburst of irritation, though Satero quieted down after the first question. He was controlling himself.

Corosa was hard-pressed to do the same. "You're not doing this out of concern for me, you're doing it for yourself. Alleviating your own guilt."

"And shit, why the hell is that a bad thing?" Satero stopped walking and turned around. Corosa managed to stop before they collided, but Satero yanked him close by the collar of his shirt. "Maybe you're right. But what does it fucking matter? What else would you expect me to do? You got injured because of me and we even fucking _look_ the same. You think I can just walk off? Would _you?_"

"Yes. But that's hardly the point." Corosa was old enough to realize that not everyone thought the same way, and that if the conversation continued spiraling off into this direction, things were only going to get worse.

But Satero either did not realize that, or was being guided by his emotions rather than rationale. He answered before Corosa could change the subject. "Oh, that so? Then why the hell haven't you run off already?"

Corosa ran his hand through his hair, holding in a frustrated sigh. "Because I'm hardly in any position to do so."

"Fucking hypocrite. What's the difference between you leaving me or me leaving you?" Satero had lowered his voice again, but had stopped trying to control his temper.

"I never said I wanted you to leave me alone--"

"To hell with you. That's exactly what you just said."

"Will you stop interrupting and hear me out for once?" Corosa asked quietly, letting his irritation get the best of him.

Satero blinked, drawing back just slightly. Then he muttered something under his breath and let Corosa go. "Alright. Go on."

Corosa did not continue just immediately. He paused, taking time to regain composure. The last thing he needed was for them to start screaming at each other. "I would not be surprised or hurt if you left. But I do not mind you staying, either. The only problem I have is that you keep trying to force things on me."

Satero did not respond immediately, either. In fact, it seemed as if he had not heard a word; he was too busy digging the blade of his axe into the ground. But when neither of them said anything more he finally looked up and drawled, "May I have permission to talk now?"

Corosa did not rise to the bait.

"Alright, I'll take that as a yes. Now you listen to me." Satero put his axe down and brushed himself off. "I'm _forcing_ things on you because you're being childish. You honestly think you can get through life like this? Without going anywhere near civilization? Maybe you could do it before, but one of these days you're gonna have to realize that having one arm is a hell of a lot different to having two. No, shut up, I'm not done yet," he said, when Corosa started to interject. "You're fucking refusing to do anything about it, and if I left you now you'd be dead by tomorrow."

Corosa took a deep breath. He was getting as sick of this phrase as Satero was, but the mastersmith was being incredibly thickheaded and had not yet gotten the point. "If surviving means setting foot anywhere near the cities, I'd rather shoot myself."

Satero yanked Corosa close again. "God_dammit_, are you just gonna give everything up because of something stupid in the past?"

"Are you ever going to realize that survival is not my number one priority?" Corosa asked, voice not rising above its normal volume.

Satero shook his head in disbelief. "That's just _unnatural_."

"You want unnatural, go visit a battlefield sometime." Corosa tried to push himself away.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" Satero only pulled them closer together, close enough for Corosa to breathe in the mint on his breath. "What exactly happened to make you become so fucking scared?"

Corosa winced. "Nothing I'd want to inflict on anyone else."

"You've been avoiding this question all this time."

"I've answered before."

"Not well enough, if that's not obvious since I still don't understand shit."

"There's nothing you can do about it, even if you did understand." Corosa didn't half-understand himself, but he knew that he never wanted to think about it again.

"Will you stop being so damn _pessimistic_? All this time, you've been saying that. 'Nothin' you can do about it'. You know how fucking sick I am of this? Sick enough to _want_ to do somethin' about it." Satero shoved Corosa away. "I'm gettin' this story, whether ya like it or not."

The abrupt motion nearly sent Corosa reeling, but it did not stop him from realizing things were going too far. He rubbed his head and said, "I can't tell you, and you won't find anything yourself."

"Fuck that. Prontera's fucking enormous. Nothin' happens there that someone won't find out about."

"The fact that no one could find out was one of the reasons why I was so affected." Corosa scowled, more at himself than at Satero. The words were too clinical and lifeless. They didn't come close to getting Corosa's point across.

"Corosa, you're not a fucking island. _Someone's_ bound to know something." Satero picked his axe up and slung it over his shoulder, starting towards the city without another word.

Corosa stopped him, planting himself straight in the mastersmith's path. "There's no point."

"Huh. I'm beginning to think there is." Satero grinned. "You seem pretty damn set on keeping me away."

Corosa's eyes wandered past Satero's shoulder, finding the small cloud of flies gathering over the cat further down the road. He continued to stare at them without seeing as he thought.

It was unlikely that anyone in Prontera would remember him, but they could very well remember his family. Still, if Satero followed that path, he'd find nothing but a few graves and an asylum.

The problem was if Satero traced all that back to Corosa's address.

"This is not about my problem anymore," Corosa said, slowly. "You're putting yourself into danger."

"Hah. I'm doing this because _you're_ putting yourself in danger. What if I told you _I'd_ rather die than see you dead first?" Satero smirked, and pushed Corosa out of the way.

Corosa swore under his breath. "That argument won't get us anywhere, either."

"Alright, let's put it this way," said Satero. "You can't, or won't, tell me what the hell's going on. So I'm gonna find out myself. Hell, maybe put myself through it if everyone else ends up like you."

"You honestly want to end up like me?" Corosa snapped. He had no patience with heroes.

Satero grinned again. "If that's the case, at least we'll stop arguing, won't we?"

Corosa swallowed. "You..."

But he had no time to finish; Satero was already striding away, whistling an unfamiliar tune to himself.

There was a fleeting moment in which Corosa nearly ran after him, before the old fear froze his steps and all he could do was watch the mastersmith disappear further down the road.

-------

**AN:** I'm still alive! Sorry for the lack of updates. My school is Very Strange and decided to dump us with a bunch of homework in the last few weeks.

Thanks to RicePaper for getting me to get this thing rollin' again. :D


	9. 009: Break Away

**009: BREAK AWAY**

The birdsong had just started again when Corosa managed to break himself out of his daze. But Satero was long gone, by then. The mastersmith moved fast for such a big man. Corosa knew that all too well. He'd been traveling with the man for the past few days.

Corosa stared down the road, wrestling the urge to dash away in the opposite direction. He still was unsure of how likely it was that Satero would find his damn past, but he'd rather not take the risk.

He'd rather not take the risk of going any nearer to Prontera, either. But it was that or Satero. Or both, if karma decided to bite him in the ass. Sometimes--especially of late, Corosa thought, grimacing as he forced himself to not look at his arm--he wondered what manner of wickedness he must have carried out in his past life, to now lead a life as shitty as this. Then again, Corosa didn't believe in karma.

He went to his knees, fumbling with the latches of his case and swearing to himself all the while. Piled on to the frustration that Satero had left him with was the frustration of not being left-handed. But at the moment, Satero worried him more. How far away was the mastersmith by now? Too far. Corosa's own damn fault for going into shock. That was stupid of him. Thirty years living in a world where things like that led you straight into death, and he still hadn't mastered his fear. Or his temper, apparently. If he hadn't allowed himself to be goaded by Satero's anger he could have prevented this.

A bit too late for regrets and what-ifs now, though. Thirty years in this world should have taught him _that_, too. The more time he sat around feeling pissed at himself, the further away Satero was getting.

He snatched some extra ammunition and slammed the lid down. The case was left lying in a ditch off to the side, and Corosa himself was left sprinting down a road that he, with all his heart, did not want to travel.

------------

It felt as if the wind were screaming in his ears.

But that was better, at least, than dead silence.

------------

How many roads to Prontera? Hopefully only one. If not, and if Satero thought he'd followed, Corosa had no chance of finding him.

There were more people now. For a moment Corosa nearly skid to a halt, his heart twisting as he realized how close he was to Prontera. No matter. He forced himself to move on. It felt like he were moving through water. He only hoped that he was going faster than that. He was, if the looks shot his way were anything to judge by.

Something clicked in his mind. Now would be a good time to find out whether Satero had suspected he'd followed. But Corosa had the feeling that the only thing keeping him going was a parody of momentum, the momentum of fear, and if he stopped it would all evaporate away and he wouldn't be able to get moving again.

Common sense kicked in. His body did not have a mind of its own; it ran when he damn well wanted it to run. And he damn well did not want to run all the way to Prontera down this road while Satero took another.

He stopped and started to raise his right arm to clutch at his chest. It registered in his mind that his right hand was not connecting. It also registered that he no longer had a right hand, so he let that arm drop. Then, still catching his breath, he flung his left arm out to grasp the nearest person's shoulder. From the corner of his eye, he saw a young woman, walking quickly and dragging a cart along behind her.

The merchant jerked her head towards him in surprise, coming to a halt.

"Yes?" she asked. Her eyes flickered towards the gun in the same hand at her shoulder. Corosa was lucky. This was one of the not-so-easily startled ones, judging by the fact that she had not beaten his head in yet.

"I'm looking for a mastersmith--"

"Seen quite a lot of them," the woman interrupted.

Corosa scowled. She hadn't been frightened out of her wits, but she was taking none too kindly to being stopped. "One who looks like me."

Their similar appearances made for one advantage, at least; it was easier to find one another. 'Blond hair, grey eyes' couldn't quite cut it when describing one person to another, and Corosa had never been good with words, let alone fullblown descriptions.

The merchant frowned at him, studying his face. She had common brown eyes but the way she stared made them disconcerting anyways. "Hm. Think I did, actually. Had a wolf's grin, did he? Sharp teeth and all? But you don't have those."

Teeth? Corosa didn't recall that, though come to think of it, every cigarette that went into Satero's mouth came out shredded to bits. "Down this road?" he asked.

"Straight towards the city. Not more than a few moments ago. If you're looking for him, you don't need to run so fast. He was walking."

Corosa's scowl remained where it was. Satero had a deceptive gait. It looked slow, but more often than not Corosa found himself speedwalking to keep up. "Thank you."

"Goodbye," the merchant said at the same time.

They had both turned away and started off in their own directions before either had finished speaking.

------------

The crowd of people became thicker. Corosa focused on getting one foot ahead of the other, instead of focusing on where he was and why there were so many bodies around him. Because crowds meant cities, and cities meant--

Damn it, there he was.

Satero was all too easy to spot, even in a crowd as varied at this one. The mastersmith towered above most people. With a start, Corosa realized that he was of the same height, too. Though slightly shorter. Satero had far better posture.

"Satero!" Corosa had to shout to make himself heard above the crowd. No one stared at that. Shouting was hardly uncommon around here.

The mastersmith turned, and in that moment Corosa's gaze slipped away from Satero to Satero's surroundings.

Walls, doors, windows, buildings. Lamp posts lining the cobbled streets, and the headache-inducing noise of too many people crammed into one small spot. The stink of the same, too. The sky seemed to be pressing down on them, hanging lower than usual, and suddenly Corosa had the distinct impression that there was not enough air for all of them.

Too late. He was off the road now, and in Prontera herself.

Driven by memories that he would happily forget, Corosa jerked his head to his right, staring off into the direction that his home had been, and still was.

The people and streets and buildings all went dark, dissolving away into the night that had not yet come upon them, and Corosa could see nothing but home.

"Shit, I didn't think you'd actually follow me." Satero had shoved his way through the crowd and it was only now that Corosa noticed. Little more than a slight movement out of the corner of his eye. But he clutched at it, anyway, because it was the only other thing he could register in Prontera aside from himself and the nightmare on the other side of the city, something only he could see.

Then that too was gone.

"That way, huh?" Satero asked, with his hand over Corosa's eyes.

"_No_." Corosa didn't expect Satero to believe him, but that was not the point. He unclenched his fist from the collar of Satero's shirt. Then he jammed the barrel of his gun against what felt like Satero's neck, wrestling his fingers into the right positions again. Even here there was, at least, the comfort found in the curve of a trigger.

"The hell?"

Corosa did not explain, still distracted by the lurking presence on the edges of his mind. Not being able to see the thing did not change the fact of its existence.

"Goddammit, Corosa, take that thing away or else we're gonna have people all over us. Ya don't play with guns here 'less you wanna get your ass handed to ya." Satero had stepped closer and was speaking straight into Corosa's ear.

"Then you're leaving with me." Corosa had to force the words out. It felt like he was speaking through a mouthful of blood.

"Like hell I am. _You're_ the idiot who decided t' follow me." Satero sounded more pitying than angry, but elements of both emotions were there. He did not seem worried by the gun at all.

Corosa let his hand drop, then raised it back up to push Satero's hand off. He stared straight at the mastersmith. The rest of Prontera was blocked out of sight. But it was not the city that was the problem, it was the damn house, and the house was always there whether Prontera was or not.

And now Satero knew which direction to head towards. He'd find it. Corosa was sure enough of that; he'd find it sooner or later, and probably sooner, knowing Corosa's luck.

Satero stepped away and snorted. "Fuck, didn't think you'd actually have the balls to come after me. Touching, that. But I'm going on anyway. Meet you back here?"

Optimism at its highest. Corosa stared at him in disbelief. He knew better than anyone else alive that if Satero found his way in, he sure as hell wasn't going to be coming out any time soon.

When Satero didn't receive a reply, he shrugged and started to walk away.

"You can't..." The rest of that sentence was lost, voice paralyzed by fear.

The mastersmith heard him, anyway, and turned. "Last time I checked, I sure as hell could."

Then he strode away, more quickly than before.

When Corosa first set out after him, he hadn't known what he planned to do. He knew that Satero was stronger than him, and faster, and unhindered by any missing limbs whatsoever. It didn't seem possible to physically force the man to do anything. The gun to his neck hadn't fazed him at all.

But Corosa knew all that, and he'd had time to chew on it, and for once he had panic on his side. There was not much time.

He growled softly and pushed his way through the people clogging up the street. The feeling of being suffocated came back, worse than ever, and with it the sensation of his heart twisting in on itself. But he ignored all that, driven on by a thousand things at once. Corosa could see into the future. And he saw that if Satero was trapped inside, he'd wind up in there too. Guilt was a hard thing to live with and guilt would drive him back home just for letting Satero slip away.

He'd sooner shoot himself through the eye before he let that happen.

Satero had disappeared, ducking into one of the smaller streets where there were less people. Corosa had lost track of him. Goddamn. He chose a likely looking path and went down it, breaking free of the main street and finding himself at the doorstep of a small shop. It had been so long since he'd last seen all this. If only it'd been a longer.

The mastersmith knew which direction to go, so Corosa went in that direction as well, as much as he hated to. With every step he came closer and closer to home.

He ran, because walking would lengthen the time, and his agonizing with it.

Though this was not the main street anymore, there were still too many people for Corosa's comfort. He had to skid to a halt at the end of an alleyway, when a young girl burst out of the door and nearly reeled straight into his path. His arm still twinged with pain. Crashing into someone was not going to alleviate him of that.

Corosa looked away from the girl edging her way around him. It was then that he caught sight of Satero, not more than a few feet away.

For the smallest fraction of time all his fear and horror and terror was lifted from him, and for the first time in a long time he found himself not afraid of the prospect of a ceiling above his head or a street beneath his feet. It was only a tiny fraction of time. But it was enough to give him the calm which he needed to aim.

Corosa did not need calm to pull the trigger.

The mastersmith had not been moving fast, and nor was he far.

-------

**A/N:** Urgh, believe me, I feel bad about leaving this hanging too. Because personally, I hate cliffhangers. But I couldn't figure out a better way to end this chapter. (aside from the obvious "rocks fall, everyone dies". but uhhhh i don't think you guys would accept that.)

I swear I'll get the next update out soon as possible.

And sorry for the lack of updates before this, I was busy the past few weeks. Had a friend over, needed to keep him entertained, and believe me, watching me write this thing probably isn't entertaining _at all_.

(also please feel free to take a moment to laugh at satero

and corosa for being such an immature dickwad

lol angstt ohshittttt

/completely useless)

(wtf my chapters are getting longer and longer)


	10. 010: Hold My Hand

**010: HOLD MY HAND**

"Shit, you bastard, shooting me in the goddamn leg aside, do you even know where the hell we are? And what the hell that _means?_" There was a strangled note to Satero's voice, which made it all too obvious that only rigid self-control was stopping him from screaming.

It'd been a clean shot straight through Satero's right calf. Exit and entry wounds, so Corosa hadn't worried. Now all he worried about was getting Satero to safety and stopping the bleeding, but more than that, he worried about getting out of the city. He hadn't wasted any time grabbing Satero and dashing off, but now he was lost in a maze of a thousand alleyways. The veins of Prontera. And he didn't like it at all.

The walls were pressing in on him.

Satero had other worries. "You realize that you're gonna get fucking arrested? Opening fire in Prontera of all places, I didn't think you could get any _stupider_...ah, fuck..."

Satero stumbled and nearly brought Corosa down with him. For the first time, Corosa turned away from his thoughts and realized that Satero wasn't up to this.

He couldn't keep dragging Satero through random alleys in the hope that they'd find a way out. Panic had served him well enough when putting Satero out of commission, but it wasn't doing jack shit for him now. But panic was not a thing he could control and his instincts told him that stopping would mean the death of them both. He kept going, even as Satero swore at him.

The mastersmith was making an admirable effort at walking, but most of his weight was still on Corosa's shoulder. At least the man had dropped his axe. Dragging Satero alone was hard enough, let alone with what looked like a thousand-ton blade. But even so...

With horror, Corosa realized that their pace had slowed down considerably.

"Goddammit, Corosa, you don't even know where we're _going_," Satero snarled. For the first time, Corosa noticed his teeth. The merchant had said 'wolf grin', but the first animal that came to mind in Corosa's head was 'shark'.

"Do you?" Corosa asked, keeping the desperateness out of his voice.

"Hell no. Can barely see straight. Gods, I'm going to..."

Corosa ignored the rest of whatever Satero had to say, the man's voice fading away to a buzz in the background. He studied the walls. It was bright, and he could see clearly, which only made things worse. Each looked exactly like the last. Round and round in circles...

With a start, Corosa snapped his head around to look behind him, wide-eyed. The presence was still there, like always, but heavier than usual. Like it was sitting on his shoulders and watching his every move. And he wondered what that meant. If he hadn't run fast enough, if he'd been too slow, if he'd been caught.

Round and round and round again. The walls and floors and ceilings, they moved faster than any mortal man. They could fly from one end of the city to the other and back, and no one would ever notice.

And Corosa realized, home wasn't just the building on the other side of Prontera. Home _was_ Prontera.

------------

Panic meant speed, and speed meant exhaustion, but more than that, it meant less time spent in Prontera's streets and more time spent out in the open, without a building in sight and no sound save for the wind through the leaves and the birdsong in the air. Corosa thought of the susurration of sand and the howling winds of the desert, and more than anything he wished he were back out there under the sun, dying of heat and dying of thirst and dying of everything save for fear.

"I'm likin' the wilderness more and more every time I see it," Satero muttered into Corosa's ear, breathing hard after the sudden dash they'd made. "At least out _here_ ya usually don't shoot me in the leg."

Then Satero let himself collapse, rolling over onto his back and sprawling out in the grass.

Corosa had yanked him out of Prontera as fast as he could, without regard for his injury.

------------

"Shit. Whaddaya mean, ya can't stop the bleeding?" Satero's face was pale, but Corosa figured that it was because of the blood loss, not because of what Corosa had just said.

"It's...supposed to bleed out, first," Corosa said, floundering for words. He did not know if what he was saying was even correct. Vague memories, pieced together from what little he recalled about gunshot wounds. He was a gunslinger, he should have known more, if not from memory then from experience. But the truth was, before Satero, he'd rarely come into contact with other humans. What little medical knowledge he had dealt with the sort of injuries dealt by Rune-Midgard's various monsters. Not gunshot wounds.

"What, it's _supposed_ to let me bleed to death?" Satero gave Corosa a backhand across the face, slightly harder than he'd probably meant it to be. Corosa had seen the hit coming. But he'd tried to block with his right hand, and Satero's fist landed with a sting.

There were rings on the hand Satero hit him with. One on his pinky and two on his middle finger. They were almost works of art, really; the metal teased into delicate shapes, embedded with gems, engraved with precision, and gifted with unintentionally sharp edges.

Without having to look, Corosa knew the rings had scraped against his skin, and knew there would be blood. He turned away and wiped it off his cheek, saying nothing.

Instead, he chose to correct Satero. "No, so that...so infection doesn't fester inside of it." He wasn't even sure if that was the right explanation, but obviously Satero needed one.

"Fuck." Satero leaned back against Corosa's guncase. He pushed his hair out of the way, grimacing. Corosa saw hints of blood on his rings, but apparently Satero had noticed nothing.

He looked at the sky. "I can't believe you fucking shot me through the leg."

"At least you'll keep it."

There was a sharpness to Corosa's voice that he hadn't meant to leak through. But it did, and Satero's mind was still clear enough to pick up on it. Lazily, Satero lowered his head.

"Hey, _I_ wasn't the one who broke your arm--"

"You were claiming that it was your fault."

"It wasn't my fault you shot me!"

"You didn't listen to me."

"What, was there a 'by the way, I might shoot you' that I missed?"

Corosa nearly backhanded Satero then, anger flaring. His fist was raised, but Satero fixed him with a cold stare and he let it drop, feeling resentment and guilt. It _was_ his fault that Satero could very well end up with a limp now. It had been his finger on the trigger.

"Sorry," he said, after a long silence.

"You sure as hell better be." Satero sat up straighter, wincing as his leg dragged. "Doesn't look like I'll be able to run for a while. Wonderful, _two_ cripples. Now all we need is another secret brother who's deaf and blind."

"I'm not your brother." The answer was almost an automatic reflex, pulled by the strings attached to Corosa's silent anger.

"What, do you hate me that much?" Satero asked. He laughed before Corosa could reply. As he spoke, his fingers had fumbled for the flask at his side. It didn't look like he was in a mood to talk anymore; he opened the flask and immediately took a long drink.

Corosa's mind went to work. "Water?"

"Shit, you think I'd want water at a time like this?" Satero put the flask back down and wiped his mouth off on the back of his hand. "Wine. Got it off one of the merchants on the way to Prontera. She charged a fucking fortune for it, too."

Corosa nodded wordlessly, thinking. He'd seen something used on someone else, so long ago, when there hadn't been a priest around for miles. Boiled alcohol poured over the injury. It hurt like all hell, but supposedly it worked.

"Where're you going?" Satero asked, as Corosa started to get up.

"Firewood. We'll be staying here a while. It's...far away enough." Corosa instinctively looked behind him, and a small wave of apprehension passed over. The city was still there, and always would be. But he could not see it now, and its presence was faint from here. There were too many trees, too much sky, too few people for Prontera to drive him to hysteria now. The forest was not the desert, but for now, it would do.

---------------------

**A/N**: There, it didn't take me too long to update, right?

Hay look, ten chapters! Woah. I guess I oughta do the ten-chapter dance now, right? Actually, no, you don't want to see me dance.

So instead of that: thanks to everyone who's reviewed. You all _rock_. And if I could, I would buy everyone ice cream.


	11. 011: Pain

**011: PAIN**

"Are you _shitting_ me? I ain't letting you do anything with that!" Satero had quickly backed away as soon as Corosa explained what was going on.

It was hard for Corsoa to repress a sigh. The search for deadwood had given him time to collect himself; he realized that he'd been childish, and he wasn't angry anymore, though the shallow cuts across his cheek still stung. But it hadn't made him any less weary. He thought about a few days ago, when he could have simply gone to sleep at this hour, someplace safe, instead of having to stay up to tend to some mastersmith who insisted on getting neck-deep into trouble on a daily basis.

"Or we could be armless and legless together," Corosa said, glancing over at the fire. The wine was starting to come to a boil.

"Ha ha, you bloody _fucker_." Satero was watching the liquid as if it would jump up and attack him.

Corosa looked at him. It was fairly dark, but even in the warm light of the fire Corosa could see that the wound was giving Satero trouble. No doubt. Most wounds did that.

Satero stared at the fire some more, then closed his eyes and growled softly. With that, he looked up, the firelight reflecting off one of his earrings. "Go ahead, you bastard."

But Corosa was still wondering what they'd use to bandage it up. There was the strip of cloth he used as a makeshift headband, but that was hardly enough.

"Here," Corosa said, mind producing an idea. He edged closer to the mastersmith. At the same time he pulled his right arm out from the sleeve of his coat. He was wearing another shirt under that, which could be used to wrap Satero's injury up. "Tear off the sleeve."

"'S won't be enough, probably," Satero muttered. He did so anyway, leaning over and tearing a hole in the cloth with his teeth. The rest of the sleeve he ripped off with his hands.

"I was getting to the other one," Corosa said. Somewhat awkwardly, he twisted himself around so that he could simply pull his arm out.

Rinse and repeat. The sleeve came off as quickly as the other one. Corosa spent another few awkward moments getting his coat back on, and managed to do it before Satero could offer help. That was a triumph, at least.

Wordlessly, he got up and found the empty flask. With no small amount of care he dipped it into the boiling alcohol until he deemed it to be full enough.

"Shit. Almost feels like torture." Satero laughed behind him, but the sound was shot through with pain.

"Shorter than that." Corosa walked back over and sat next to him.

Satero stretched out his leg and rolled his pants up above his knee. Corosa was watching him all the way through. The man was trying to hide something, and that something was probably his pain. They hadn't known each other for long but the carefully blank expression on Satero's face would have looked unnatural on any man.

"Stop fucking looking at me like that," Satero said when he noticed Corosa staring. "And get on with it, damn you."

Corosa tilted the flask far enough for the liquid to pour out.

Satero's scream ripped its way out from his throat with such force that Corosa winced, thinking the sound was like to strip the mastersmith's bones clean. There was suddenly a hand on his shoulder, fingernails digging in hard enough to feel like daggers. Corosa quickly dumped the last of the wine out and threw the flask to the side, trying to pry Satero's hand off. No luck. That was some unnatural strength. He gave up and let Satero's hand be, clenching his teeth together against the pain.

Though it was probably nothing compared to what he had just done to Satero. It took the man a few long moments to pull himself together.

"Oh, shit, _shit_, you fucking _bastard_, I bet you enjoyed that, didn't you," Satero breathed, barely able to string words together.

Corosa let himself laugh. Not a true laugh, never, but a ghost of one. "Hardly. Not with you trying to pull my shoulder off."

Satero's grip tightened further, a sudden movement that caused Corosa to flinch just slightly. "Oh, you think _this_ hurts? You're lucky I didn't try to silence myself by biting you."

Corosa turned his head and took a good look at Satero's teeth. "True."

"I _should_, you bastard."

There was no helping some things, like Corosa's reply. "False."

"_Ha ha_." Satero relaxed, though, visibly, and finally loosened his grip. He leaned back against the guncase again, ruffling Corosa's hair. His hand lingered slightly longer than it should have, causing Corosa to look up sharply. But Satero had drawn his away by then and was watching the fire start to burn down.

The makeshift bandages were applied, and Corosa kept his hand pressed down on the wound afterwards. Satero made no comment, and Corosa did not try to strike up a conversation. The day had been too wearing for both of them to do that now. The silence was comforting by now.

"Never got to deliver that letter to your kid, ya know," Satero muttered a few moments after the last embers died, breaking the long quiet.

"It's all right. It can wait." Corosa felt the wetness of blood beneath his fingertips. The bandage was soaked all the way through. He fumbled for another strip of cloth and tied that around Satero's leg, too. A relatively simple task, made harder by the fact that he could not see anything.

"Wasn't asking for your apologies," Satero said, sounding irked. "Just tryin' to make you realize it was your fault."

There was another pang of guilt in Corosa's chest. He shoved it away. "I never said it wasn't."

"Bullshit. You were all but denying it before."

"Do we have to bring this up again?" Corosa asked, this time unable to keep the weariness out of his voice. All he wanted to do right now was sleep.

"Huh. So long as you know."

"I do." Corosa drew up the last strip of cloth and bound it around Satero's leg. He wiped his hands off and said, "You sleep. I'll keep watch."

"How long?" It didn't sound as if Satero was altogether too concerned. More like a reaction, a question that was expected of him.

"Doesn't matter. I'll wake you up eventually." Corosa moved away, to start up the fire again. The fire kept most of the forest's creatures at bay, and most of his own nightmares, too. As much as he wanted to sleep he knew that his dreams would be shot through with unwanted memories of Prontera. Memories from years ago and, more likely, mere hours ago.

"Mm." Satero yawned as Corosa got the flames to spring back into life. With the fire lit, Corosa turned; he'd expected Satero to say something more.

They stared at each other for a moment, both with blank expressions on their faces. Satero looked away first, rubbing his eyes.

"So long as you don't shoot me in the leg again," he said.

"Don't worry," Corosa said dryly. "I'll get your arm next time. To even things out."


	12. 012: Under the Rain

**012: UNDER THE RAIN**

Satero was a strange man when he was drunk. Corosa had always been under the impression that there were certain types of drunk, and when you fell into one type, you remained that way for life. But Satero seemed able to switch whenever he felt like it, which made Corosa wonder whether he was drunk at all.

Most of the time, though, he was a sort that Corosa had never encountered before.

The man was pleasant enough when he was sober, even if it was a during-morning-hangover sort of sober. It was then that Corosa attempted reasoning with him, trying to explain that using all their zeny to buy wine was not the best idea. And Satero understood that, and even agreed.

But some sort of divine force kept driving him to buy more.

This aspect of Satero's life was not something Corosa had ever seen before. In all the time they'd spent together, the vast majority of it had been spent far away from alcohol. And perhaps that was why Satero was drinking constantly now.

It did not make Corosa's life any better, though now he had pressing reasons to get away from the mastersmith.

Not pressing enough for him to simply walk away from Prontera and keep going. Corosa could almost understand why Satero had insisted on staying with him. It was hard to leave a man who looked like your reflection in the mirror.

Despite that, it was also hard staying with a man who tended to mutter strange, incomprehensible things when he was drunk.

It was as if he were speaking a completely different language. Corosa had tried listening, tried understanding, but no matter how hard or how carefully he listened he could not catch anything that Satero was saying. It was the same every night; the mastersmith sitting by the side of the road, his voice a low murmur in the air that only slowly died away. The only thing that Corosa ever understood was the frustrated, angry undertone to Satero's words. That was why he had never directly asked Satero about what he was saying, not when he was actually speaking. And by the time Satero was sober enough to talk to, he never remembered anything.

But it was beginning to disturb Corosa almost as much as Prontera itself.

He stood up, unable to sleep because of the rain lashing against his face, and the fact that Satero was still talking to himself. Careful to avoid tripping, Corosa made his way over, only stopping when he was in front of the mastersmith.

"Satero," Corosa said, breaking the almost-silence brought on by night, and the almost-silence of all the nights before.

Abruptly, Satero stopped talking to himself. But the mastersmith did not move, or say anything more, not then and not for the rest of the whole night, and the silence made Corosa more nervous than the murmur ever had.

------------

**A/N: **See? Disconnected! I TOLD YOU SO. Expect the series to be more like this in the future, just bits and pieces of their time together. One chapter isn't necessarily supposed to flow into the next. Though sometimes that happens, too.

Also, as for all those over-a-thousand-word chapters, they weren't supposed to wind up that long.

...They probably will in the future anyways.

Eh.


	13. 013: Heaven

**013: HEAVEN**

"You're religious." It was a statement, not a question. Why would it be a question? Satero had just admitted to it himself. Corosa was simply skeptical, and that much anyone could tell.

"Well, sorta," Satero said, yawning and stretching his leg out. He winced; it had been a couple of days, and his wound was still bothering him. He grumbled about it. Sometimes it was in a good-natured way, and at other times -- mostly when he was drunk -- he plunged into pessimism, talking himself into believing that he'd have a permanent limp forever.

"See, basically, the way I see things is like this -- if ya got zombies and skeletons and ghosts an all those undead things walkin' around, ya can't _not _believe in a heaven. Or hell." Satero had been chewing on a cigarette, but he seemed to have forgotten about it; it dangled motionless from his bottom lip. "'Cause those things had to have come from somewhere, and they obviously didn't come from here, they went somewhere else and then _came back _and...I think I lost ya, didn't I."

Corosa arched an eyebrow. "Somewhere, yes."

"Yeah, I think I lost myself too." Satero pushed his bangs out of his eyes, and furrowed his brow in thought. "What I'm tryin' to get at is that, like, if there _weren't _no afterlife, there wouldn't be undead either. So if there's an afterlife, there's gotta be a God too. Yanno?"

Corosa thought this over for a long while. Then he said, "You said something before. About them 'coming back'. Why couldn't they have just...stayed in this world?"

"Eh?" Satero looked completely blank.

"Ghosts," Corosa said, his ideas coming together. "After death, everyone could become a ghost on _this _world. Stay here. But some of them are visible, and most aren't." He didn't believe in that theory, either, but he was throwing it out there to try and disprove Satero's.

Satero shrugged. "Yeah, okay, but where the hell do the zombies come into this?"

"Zombies could be like machines. Dead bodies animated by magic." Which meant that the afterlife and God didn't come into the equation.

_Dead bodies animated by magic... _Corosa had a sudden morbid image of his right arm crawling along the ground.

On second thought, he didn't much like that theory, either.

"So why haven't any mages figured out how to make zombies, then?" Satero had given up eating his cigarette and was shredding it with his nails instead. "Or who's makin' them? _What's _makin' 'em?"

"Isn't that what the kingdom's hiring people to find out?" That was over a year ago, though. Corosa didn't keep up-to-date on the undead. He much rather preferred staying out of the way.

"Eh. No one's been having much luck. Getting eaten alive does that to ya." Satero flicked away the remains of his cigarette. "So you don't believe in anythin'?"

"No." Corosa's parents had both been religious; his mother had been a priestess. He, however, had gone the complete opposite direction.

"Eh. I don't know. Don't really believe in all that thou-shalt-not shit, but I still think there's gotta be some god out there. God. Goddess. Somethin'-or-another," Satero said. "Haven't ever been to church, mind you."

"I have." Corosa didn't remember much about it, aside from the fact that he'd never given a damn. The only reason he ever stepped foot into the place was because of his parents. To him, it'd always felt like a waste of time.

It took a moment for Corosa to notice that Satero was staring at him. Probably because it'd seemed like Corosa was going to say more. But he did not have much to say on the subject, and as soon as he met Satero's stare, the mastersmith looked away.

"So when you die..." Satero chewed on a fingernail. "What do you think happens? That ghost shit?"

"I don't know." Corosa had never given much thought to death, unless it was about keeping himself out of it. He accepted it as something that would happen, but hopefully not in a long while.

"What do you think?" Satero asked.

Corosa massaged the back of his neck, which was starting to ache; he hadn't moved from the same position in a while. "I don't."

"Huh?" Satero tried pulling his knees up to his chest, glanced at his injury, and decided against it.

"I don't think about it." It was as honest an answer as Corosa could give.

He'd like to believe in an afterlife. He'd like to believe that after death, there was a second sort of life; another place where you could go. That you didn't simply die, and sink into something that was the equivalent of eternal deep sleep. But it all seemed too idealistic to him, too unreal. It was, for him, an empty idea, and he could not put faith into an empty idea.

Faith. To have faith, to believe in something that could very well be untrue, -- and in the light of that definition, Corosa was the most faithless person on the face of the earth. He could _not _bring himself to believe in something that was not solid and tangible and real. To put so much into something that possibly did not exist, to _believe _in that same thing -- that sort of strength was far beyond him.

He felt his mouth twisting itself into something like a wry smile. That made Satero stronger than him in almost all aspects, didn't it? Physically and mentally and spiritually.

Satero was staring at him again.

"Yanno," he said, "I think that's the first goddamn time I've seen you smile."

He paused. And then added, "It's fucking _weird._"

* * *

**A/N:** I - I - I - I am NOT sorry that took so long to update! HAH!

Okay I lie I am actually very sorry, just had writers' block for the past half month. D: I wrote, like, five versions of this chapter and this was the only one that was halfway decent. SORRY GUYS I'LL TRY TO BE FASTER NEXT TIME.

OKAY I LOVE YOU ALL. EVERYONE!


	14. 014: Memory

**014: MEMORY**

"Damn. Did I – was that me?" Satero's fingers brushed against Corosa's cheek, where the scrapes of a day ago were still healing. A reminder that getting into an argument with a drunk Satero was not a good idea.

Corosa nodded, arching an eyebrow at the unwanted physical contact. Satero didn't notice.

"_Shit. _I don't even remember."

"You need to stop drinking, then," Corosa answered carefully. Satero had just emptied a flask, though it was – so far tonight – his first.

"Ha ha. And you need to stop breathing." Satero's mocking tone dissolved, and he suddenly looked too self-conscious. "Uhm. I mean. I'm – fuck. What the hell do I mean?"

"I hardly know." Corosa was watching the clouds, only half-listening. The rest of him was wondering how far he could get on what bullets he had left. He hadn't gotten a chance to restock since the Sograt Desert. That felt like a year ago, now. In reality it had only been – how long? Half a month?

"Are ya even listenin' to me?" Satero asked, not angry but probing.

"Yes," Corosa said, looking up. Satero was sitting on the guncase. Corosa was currently half-sprawled out on the grass, using the rest of the guncase as an extremely high, hard, and uncomfortable pillow.

"Alright. What I wanted to say – want – whatever – fuck, I'm absolute shit at this--" Satero swore some more to himself, looking even more self-conscious than before. Quite frankly, Corosa was surprised the man was not yet blushing.

With a frown, Corosa noted, "You've never had much trouble talking."

"Yeah. Well. It ain't the talkin' that's the problem--" Satero cut himself off again, rubbing his head and looking annoyed. "Shit. Can't find the right words. Uhmmm."

The clouds became less interesting. Corosa glanced at the mastersmith. "You're worse than this when drunk."

Satero cocked his head to the side. "Fuck. Really? I always thought I talk easier when I'm wasted."

It took Corosa a moment of staring to accept that Satero was serious. His frown became deeper as he thought back to the strange moments Satero had now and then, when he became almost completely still save for a whisper that continued on for hours. They were still happening, once when Satero had been sober. Corosa had woken up in the middle of the night because of that, and had spent the rest of the night in a clearing far away, wishing desperately for morning.

"Well..." Corosa tried to put his words together. Satero never remembered his trances. Corosa wasn't sure whether Satero believed him about them, either. "...you talk easier, yes, but less clearly."

"Oh. Damn. Right. See, I jus' – what the hell, we'll be talkin' about religion again if this keeps on." Satero stopped talking, this time not struggling for words but struggling to find the point. "Right. What I've been tryin' to say all this time is that...oh, dammit."

Corosa resisted the urge to point out that this was exactly what Satero had been saying the whole time. Repeatedly, in fact.

Satero looked away. "Jus' tryin' to say, 'm sorry."

"What?" Corosa blinked. He tried to cross his arms, which did not work well with an arm and a half.

"Yeah. See what I mean? Sounds fuckin' _lame._ Doesn't even sound right. I mean...'s just a word_. One_ word. Doesn't – doesn't get the _point _acrossShit, I'm bad at this." Satero scowled, looking, for a moment, even more like Corosa. Which was uncanny. After all this time Corosa was beginning to pick out the differences between them, minute as they were. Small enough that no one else would ever notice. Possibly not even Satero.

Satero's scowl changed, twisting to the side. Corosa's guts unclenched. His own frowns did not quite look like that.

"How the hell do you do it," Satero said, somehow managing to word it like a statement. "Apologize. 'S near fucking impossible. To make it sound _right._"

Corosa never thought about it. He never had anyone to apologize to. To those whom he owed the biggest apology – well, they were already dead. Or in some world beyond this one, minds too far removed to comprehend anything. _Not even food_, said the priests who took care of his daughter. They had to force-feed her. Sometimes Corosa wondered whether it would be a better apology to let her die.

"...Hey. You've been lookin' at me like that for the past _eternity._ 'S getting sorta creepy now." Satero waved a hand in front of Corosa's face. "Wanna stop anytime soon?"

"Sorry. I was thinking." Corosa said, pushing guilt-laden memories to the back of his mind where he could chew on them later. Damn Satero for bringing them back up.

"Ya do that too much." Satero shook his head, as if this was a deep flaw. Then he leaned over Corosa. "Whatcha thinkin' about?"

"Nothing, now."

"An' before?" Satero's eyebrows were raised. The expression he wore was too nonchalant to be truly innocent.

"I'd like to think that if I lose all privacy elsewhere, at least I still have the inside of my head." Corosa was not liking the amount of interest Satero was showing.

"Ah. Right." Satero's expression melted into momentary confusion, which was then replaced by the now-familiar wicked grin. "Why, somethin' ya hidin' from me?"

Corosa gave him a blank look, which showed exactly how much he understood Satero's question and the grin behind it. Satero let out an exaggerated sigh and mussed Corosa's hair. Corosa considered pulling away, and then decided his energy levels were just barely high enough for him to continue _breathing_.

Satero made a face. "Ya need to wash."

Corosa shrugged. "So do you."

"Yeah, but I ain't the one who's been runnin' around wild for the past – what? Two years?" Satero said, shrugging.

"I can still remember the last time I took a bath," Corosa said, in rather weak defense.

"Yeah, well I can still remember the first time I got in a fight an' that was when I was seven. Six. Maybe five. What does _that _say, huh?"

"You had a violent childhood."

"My parents wanted me to be a knight. Figured winning fights was good practice."

"Why didn't you become a knight, then?" Corosa considered moving again, seeing as Satero had forgotten about his hand and left it in Corosa's hair.

"I...see, that's what I'm tryin' to remember now," Satero said. "Huh. I dunno, really. Just...didn't. Never went to Izlude or anythin'. I mean...'s weird. My parents never stopped wanting me to be a knight. Still wound up a smith, somehow."

"Your parents let you?" Corosa asked, turning to look up at Satero again. His own parents had been none too pleased when Corosa joined the gunslinger guild, but at that point he was too old for them to control.

"No. Yes. Uhm. Fuck, I don't remember." Satero was chewing on his glove. Corosa could already see that his teeth had torn straight through the cloth. "I...don't know."

Now Corosa wanted to know what Satero was thinking. Humans forgot things all the time; it was the way minds worked. But Satero seemed too worried about it to be healthy. Corosa latched on to a new topic. "I don't think either of us can sew," he pointed out.

"What?" Satero glanced down at his glove. Realization dawned on him. "Oh. Right."

But he picked at it for the rest of the day. Corosa didn't see him do it, but the next morning he found a tattered scrap of black cloth discarded on the grass, where Satero had been sitting the night before.


	15. 015: Light

**0015: LIGHT**

"Wish I had a light now," Satero grumbled. He'd fished out a damp cigarette, and was giving it a critical look.

"It'd go out," Corosa said, without thinking. He was too busy cursing the weather. Though they'd chosen a tree with heavy foliage, they were still getting wet.

Then it dawned on him that while Satero seemed to have a never-ending supply of cigarettes, he had never lit any of them up.

"You don't smoke," Corosa said sharply.

"Eh?" Satero was rubbing water from his eyes, and didn't seem to be listening. "What?"

"You said you wanted a light, but you don't smoke." That was enough to strike anyone as odd.

"I did?" Satero frowned. "When?"

Corosa turned. "Just a few moments ago," he said, slowly, wondering whether Satero was mocking him by acting stupid.

But Satero only looked perplexed. "You ain't sick, are ya?"

They engaged in a long stare, each wary of the other. If Satero had been mocking him, he wouldn't draw it out like this. At least, Corosa didn't think he would. It did not seem like him.

Satero reached out and put a hand against Corosa's forehead. He left it there for a moment, then placed the same hand against his own forehead, trying to get a comparison.

"I'm not sick," Corosa said.

"Well, 's either you or me. You _sure_ you heard me say that?" Satero asked, as if hoping Corosa was pulling his leg. But if there was one difference between them, it was that Satero's sense of humor was far greater than Corosa's.

"Alright. Maybe I did say that." Satero did not look convinced, though. "I dunno. This weather's doin' strange things to me. Don't remember who I am, half the time."

Corosa was silent, still musing on what had just happened.

"I don't like sittin' still," Satero said, suddenly, pulling Corosa out of his thoughts. "These past few days, we haven't been able to move 'cause ya shot me--"

"--We're back to that again, are we," Corosa murmured. It was the subject of most of their Corosa-versus-drunk-Satero arguments.

Satero punched his shoulder.

"No, just sayin'. Can't move because of it. An' I don't like it, 's makin' me weird-like." Satero covered a yawn with his hand, and then stuck the cigarette between his teeth. Corosa watched it like it was going to bite.

"_Weird_," Satero repeated, darkly. "Like...I don't get drunk. Usually. Not like this, anyway. I mean...sometimes, yeah, when I'm feelin' good. Or stupid. Usually stupid. But not when I'm frustrated. Drinking when I'm frustrated, it just makes me angry, and – I already apologized to ya about that. But that's what happens. So I don't do it. But like this, when I got nothin' else to do..."

"You drink because you're bored?" Corosa asked, raising an eyebrow. Then again, Satero never _had _struck him as the drink-to-drown-your-sorrows type.

"Hah. Sounds stupid. But that's sorta...yeah. That's it. For these days, anyway," Satero said.

Corosa shrugged. Each to their own. When Satero got drunk, he tended to get angry, and when he got angry he tended to argue with Corosa. If that was what he wanted to do in order to alleviate boredom, Corosa saw no need for him to get drunk first. Maybe things would lead to less hitting, that way.

Satero mumbled something into his hand. Somewhere along the way, his cigarette had disappeared.

"Hm?" Corosa asked, glancing at him.

"'And I'm getting worriedI said." For once, Satero was not looking at Corosa; now it was the other way around.

"About wha -- oh." Corosa interrupted his own question, realizing how stupid it was. There was only one thing for Satero to be worried about.

Or was there? He, in fact, did not know much about Satero's past. He knew about the man's family, but nothing about what he had done before they met; where he'd lived, where he usually worked, why he was in the desert in the first place. It occurred to him that Satero had to have had a life that didn't involve Corosa, at some point. _I ain't the one who's been runnin' around for the past two years._ He had just said that a few days before, and it was damn well true. Corosa was the one who only had one thing to worry about -- himself. Satero was different.

"...About your leg?" Corosa asked, warily.

"Yeah," Satero said. If he did have friends and family and lovers back wherever he'd come from, he wasn't thinking about them now. "Ya think I'm gonna have to limp for the rest of my life?"

If he did, Corosa thought inanely, he'd have a hard time getting back to his home.

That was not what Corosa said. Instead he admitted, "I don't know."

"Well aren't you helpful," said Satero, twisting his mouth into a frown that was becoming more and more common. Corosa didn't much like the change, and hoped things would be different once they managed to get moving again.

"Ya realize I won't be nearly as much use to ya with a limp."

"You probably won't be nearly as much use to me without a weapon, either," Corosa said. He closed his eyes. Use? He did not think of Satero in terms of use, and never had.

"Shit!" Satero clapped a hand to his mouth. His words came out muffled. "Forgot I lost my axe. Fuck, that was your fault, too."

"Quite a lot is my fault." Corosa wondered if Satero would some day manage to pin his amputated arm as 'your fault', too.

Satero punched him again. "Don't guilt-trip me. Not _everything's_ your fault. ...Alright. Maybe a little bit. _Some_ things. ...Oh, hell. Damn you, you're right, a lot _is _your fault."

Corosa opened his eyes. "You do wonders for a man's self-esteem."

"Hah. Whaddaya need self-esteem for? Ya got me_. I've_ got enough self-esteem to make up for you." Satero's grin was back. Corosa liked it there; it was familiar, and told him that _something _had to be going right.

Corosa raised his head, suddenly all too aware of something that had just gone hollow within himself.

His consciousness of the fact that Satero had led another life, the fact that they would be on the move soon, Satero considering himself in terms of how useful he was, Satero's own words – _ya got me, don't ya? _-- all of it was coming together, and it all came down to one question:

_How long?_

"You'll have to go back, eventually," Corosa said, voice low. "To wherever you came from."

"What for?" Satero was nonplussed, and showed it.

"You have a life."

"Yeah, right now I'm plannin' on spendin' it to follow you, And make sure ya don't lose your _other _arm, too." Satero was starting to comprehend what Corosa was getting at, now. He looked none too pleased about it.

Corosa covered his face with his hand, feeling a headache coming on. "Don't you have...anyone? Friends?"

"...Sort of."

Corosa took that as a yes, despite the pause beforehand. "What about them?"

Satero whistled a few short bars of some unfamiliar tune. "...They can go to hell?"

"I believe that counts as a _wrong _answer." Corosa was amused, despite himself. It felt like he was questioning a child. And no doubt Satero was going to come to the wrong conclusion, despite how many hints Corosa dropped.

The amusement went away. He cut to the point. "You can't just abandon everyone. And everything you had before."

Mastersmith. Corosa had not met many mastersmiths in his lifetime. Anyone whose skills developed to that level _had _to have had something successful going for them. In any case, trailing after a crippled gunslinger was hardly the sort of job for a mastersmith.

"Hell, for all you know, maybe I _didn't _have anythin' before. And my friends can live just fine without me." Satero's voice was not yet angry, but it seemed to be getting there.

Corosa said nothing, wondering if he should let the conversation come to a halt before they ended up fighting again.

Satero ended it for them. "Listen, we can talk about this some other time. I'm going to sleep."

There was a short and clipped quality to Satero's words, not a tone Corosa had heard before. Perhaps Satero was already angry, then.

But later, when night had fallen and the rain had stopped, Corosa heard Satero shifting his weight. And then the mastersmith slung his arm around Corosa's neck and proceeded to fall asleep on his shoulder, without saying a word.

He could not have been all that angry.

**AN: **...And one of these days, these two will stop sitting around and talking _and actually do stuff. _'S hard to imagine, I know, but it _will_ happen.

(a-a-a-and shush apparently it's the rainy season in Rune-Midgard okay.

I AM GUILTY. SO, SO GUILTY.)


	16. 016: Trouble Lurking

**016: TROUBLE LURKING**

"Wait a damn sec," Satero hissed, yanking back on Corosa's shoulder as he attempted to take another step forwards. Corosa stumbled back behind him as Satero froze. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the mastersmith's hands fumbling for the handle of a weapon he no longer had. Satero caught himself and swore.

Corosa shot him a questioning look. Satero waved him away, eyes flickering out over the plains. There was nothing in sight but grass everywhere, waist-high in some places.

Corosa thought about that.

_Waist-high_. Ah.

That was probably _why _there was nothing in sight.

"There ain't no wind, right?" Satero muttered, still searching.

"No." Corosa was sure of that. For the past half-hour, he'd been wishingfor a wind. Out here, there was no overhead foilage to block out the sun. And it was noon.

"Well, I coulda swore I just saw the grass sway. Or somethin'. 'S silent now, though." Satero ran a hand through his hair. His eyes were narrowed.

Corosa looked in the same direction. The grass was completely still. He looked back at the mastersmith.

It was too early, he'd thought. They'd been resting by the Pronteran roadside for a couple of days, but Satero was still limping and his leg was still in pain. Oddly enough, it'd been Satero who'd gotten them on the move. Not Corosa. Corosa had been for staying a while longer. Satero had laughed at him, and said he'd be perfectly fine. And the whole way, he had been; he hadn't said a word about his leg and he'd never had to call for a stop yet. But Corosa had been watching him the whole way and he noticed things.

If there was something out there, waiting for them, Satero was in no shape to be fighting.

Neither of them were, really.

Corosa was about to suggest they turn back when Satero grabbed his arm and jerked his head in the direction he'd been staring at.

"Shoot. That way," he said, quietly. "Don't ask, jus' do it."

The last statement did nothing to stop Corosa from hesitating. "If it's a monster and I shoot, it'll come after us."

"Yeah, but at least then it won't fucking _jump _at us from nowhere. Least then we'll know where it is. 'Sides, 's not like any monster round here to sit around and wait. If they ain't attackin', they move on, and if they _are _attackin', then they damn well attack." Satero spat out the cigarette he'd been chewing on for most of the morning – or, considering the rate at which he went through them, it was possibly his eleventh or twelfth one.

"It might not--"

"Oy, I've got _two _good hands."

"Legs, too?" Corosa could not swallow the retort.

"Shut up. We're even now. Now shoot or else I'll _throw_ you at the thing."

Corosa stared at the surrounding plains dubiously. Aside from the fact that he did not want to attract some injured and enraged animal, there was also the fact that he had not yet restocked. His ammunition was running low.

Satero hit him on the back of the head. "Want me to count to three?"

"No. Your services are not required."

The shot went off before Corosa had finished his sentence.

There was a sound, beyond that of the gun – louder than the gun, even. Something had yelped. Something that sounded suspiciously human.

"Thief," Satero guessed, watching the trail of moving grass. "Highwayman."

"If so, he's not too good at it." Corosa was watching the same thing, wondering whether he ought to shoot again.

It was around that point that Satero suddenly swore, very loudly, and tackled Corosa to the ground.

Somewhere above them, there was a flash of metal.

Satero was off Corosa in a moment, rolling away and grabbing their attacker's ankle. In one swift movement, he yanked back as hard as he could and sent the man crashing to the ground. But the man was just as fast, and there was a katar aimed at Satero not a split second later. Corosa's gun had been knocked away when Satero threw him to the ground. It was too far to grab. He did the next best thing, which was to smash his fist into the attacker's face.

He cursed. If he'd had two arms, he'd have been able to swing his guncase into the man. Considering the fact that it held the rest of his weaponry, it would have done much more damage. But his left arm was already tired out from carrying it; slamming it into someone was out of the question.

Satero had thrown himself at the attacker again – an assassin cross? Corosa wondered, catching a glimpse of the uniform. Corosa scrambled for his gun, snatching it up and then realizing he'd have a higher chance of shooting Satero than he would the assassin.

The idiot. _No one _threw himself at someone armed with very sharp weapons when he himself was unarmed. _The idiot. _Corosa would have screamed at him out of sheer irritation, if he had not seen a burst of red blossom between the two.

He saw a hand go up, katar with it, dark and bony and unfamiliar. Without a moment's hesitation he shot.

A scream, but more of fury than of rage. Corosa could not see whether he'd hit because the hand and katar were both brought down, a minute later, on Satero.

The mastersmith threw himself back just in time. The blade scraped against his shoulder, tearing through cloth.

What happened next went too fast for Corosa to see. He heard a crack, heard another scream of rage, and saw a flash of silver. And then Satero had the man pinned down by one wrist – Corosa vaguely realized the fingers of the assassin's other hand were bent in unnatural directions, the katar discarded – and Corosa had his gun against the attacker's head.

The assassin gave them a more than maniacal grin, and swung his mangled hand into the side of Satero's head.

There was a shout, and for a moment Corosa found himself completely confused. It had not come from any of them. Then he looked up and saw _another _man, white-and-black haired, already disappearing away from them.

It had been a mistake to look up. Satero was dazed by the blow. The assassin realized that the mastersmith had let go of his good hand and the gunslinger was no longer paying attention to him. Faster than any human should have been able to move, the assassin was up on his feet and dashing after his companion, two katars in one hand.

He shot one glance behind, and Corosa caught sight of bright blue eyes. Bright and blue and _insane. _

Corosa fired several shots after them, but missed with each of them. He clenched his teeth together, thinking that if he'd been able to use both hands he'd at least have hit one of the bastards.

Satero suddenly put a hand on his shoulder when Corosa tried to reload.

"Shit," Satero groaned. He brought a hand to his head, then dropped it and clutched his shoulder. "Shit. Never mind. Jus' let 'em...oh, _shit, shit, shit. _Fuck. _Fuck. _Corosa's, where's your case?"

They looked around.

The case was nowhere in sight.

"Goddammit, you'd think an _assassin cross_ woulda had _better_ things to do than fuckin' steal off other people!"

--------------------

**A/N: **RicePaper, this one's for you since you requested it in _Shades of Gray_.

Guess who the guest stars are. :D

There's a companion chapter to this one in _Shades, _if anyone wants to check it out. 'S not that exciting. First...Sound and Stone bitch at each other. And then...they bitch at each other even more! AND SOMEONE ACTUALLY GETS SOMETHING THROWN AT HIM. I think I'm going to have a heart attack!

ALSO ALSO ALSO YOU GUYS MUST SEE THE AWESOME FANART I GOT MFRRHKKGHGHKHGKHKG. I still can't stop squealing about it. (**tinyurl(dot)com(slash)2vcp4c**)

Thanks so much Rizuuuuuuuuu I LOVE YOU.


	17. 017: Teamwork

**017: TEAMWORK**

"They ain't movin'," Satero muttered. For once his voice was quiet. For once Corosa could barely hear him. "What the hell do you think they're doin' now?"

"None of your concern," Corosa replied. "You shouldn't even be moving around."

"Fuck, man, it's just my _shoulder._"

That was the strange thing, Corosa thought. It should have been more than just his shoulder. Corosa still distinctly remembered _two _hits landing. The missing injury was from the stab. If it had landed, Satero would be dead. But there was no sign of a second injury. Satero had probably bitten the assassin, then. Corosa wouldn't put it past him.

"Yes. Your shoulder," Corosa agreed. "And your leg."

Satero's grin widened. "So _now _you're feelin' sorry."

Corosa shut up and returned his attention to the assassin and the archer. They had stopped, probably thinking Corosa and Satero had stopped as well – which they had done some ways back, when Satero's leg finally overruled his willpower. Corosa had supported him the rest of the way. He'd tried to convince the mastersmith that his leg was more important than some equipment that Corosa could probably buy again – after he somehow magically found more money – but Satero had threatened to bite his other hand off. He'd made a lunge for it, and now Corosa's knuckles were bleeding.

That, and Corosa _did _want to reclaim his case.

"What the hell does an assassin and an archer want with your guns, anyway?" Satero asked. "I mean, assassin crosses, they ain't all that common...you'd think he'd be able to go make money headhuntin' or something."

"I don't kno– oh, did he just throw – he did." Corosa winced, thinking of all his equipment and what sort of abuse it was suffering.

"Aw," Satero said, with a shit-eating grin on his face. He mussed Corosa's hair and continued. "Don't worry, we'll rescue your precious babies."

"They're not—"

"Shut up, no one cares." Satero drew himself into a crouch, testing his leg by putting some weight on it. He winced. "Well, what the hell. 'S now or never. _Oy, those are OURS, you fucking bastards!"_

Nearly getting his ear blown off by Satero's shout was well worth the expression on the thieves' faces, especially when Satero tackled the nearest one – the archer – to the ground. The assassin cross reacted far more quickly than Corosa had expected, slamming the case shut, locking it, and then dashing away with the same impossible speed as before.

The archer made a strangled noise that probably meant something along the lines of '_are you running without me, you bastard?'_

Unlike before, Corosa was ready this time; as soon as Satero had gotten the archer out of the way, Corosa was already running after the assassin cross. Who, unfortunately, only seemed to gain speed the longer he went. Corosa swore to himself and fumbled with his revolver, slowing down just long enough to take aim and shoot. He missed, but the assassin stumbled and found Corosa's gun against his head as soon as he tried to get up.

"Mind returning that?" Corosa asked, without a trace of amusement in his voice. He didn't kill other _people, _but there was always a first.

The assassin hadn't turned. He seemed to be considering his options.

Abruptly he twisted around and dropped. Corosa's finger twitched, but the shot went over the assassin's head. Acting on reflex, Corosa kicked out and sent the man sprawling.

"_Erk!_"

Something darted between Corosa and the assassin, and that something turned out to be the archer, looking like a madman. There was a demented look in his eye. That aside, he was still one of the strangest-looking people Corosa had ever seen. His bangs were colored black, the rest of his hair was white, and there were strange tattoos around his eyes – which were green, and had slit pupils.

Without hesitation, the archer grabbed the assassin by the hair, yanked him up, and shoved him towards Corosa with an urgency that spoke of terror. His eyes darted over Corosa's shoulders with a quizzical twitch of his eyebrows. Corosa didn't glance backwards, but he was sure Satero was right behind.

The assassin was looking at the archer like he was insane.

"Huh?" he asked.

"Argh," the archer said, now sounding irritated.

"Fff."

"Argh"

"Eh."

"_Aaaargh._"

"Hph."

"Argh!"

"What the hell," Satero muttered, walking up and leaning on Corosa's shoulder. He waved at the archer, who promptly jumped back behind the assassin and tried to shrink.

"Are they...foreign...?" Corosa asked, feeling more and more confused by the moment. The exchange was still going, and had evolved into an astonishing variety of strange noises. The assassin seemed to have forgotten that Corosa and Satero were even there, whereas the archer was trying to avoid Satero's gaze by any means possible.

"Nah," Satero said, wiping his mouth off the back of his hand. "Mutes. No tongues. Don't ask how, 'cause I sure as hell don't know."

The exchange of noises fell into silence as the archer whacked the assassin over the head, and then kicked him in the shins.

"_Eh?_" The assassin seemed more surprised than hurt. He put a hand over the archer's forehead, as if he were checking for fever. The archer glared at him.

"...uh." The assassin shrugged. Then he turned back to Corosa, with a murderous gleam in his eye.

He held out the case. Corosa began to reach for it. Satero spluttered, and batted his hand away.

"Gun up. Ya can trust the archer, but I wouldn't say the same of this one."

The assassin looked like he'd just been cheated. His mouth twitched as the handle of the case left his hand.

There was a split second when Corosa thought he saw one of the katars start moving, but all the assassin was doing was stretching his arm.

Satero dropped the case in the grass next to Corosa. It failed to detonate. In fact, it failed to do anything suspicious at all. They stared at it for a moment, but when it continued to be completely innocent their attention returned to the thieves.

"Alright. We ain't gonna kill you this time, but if I see your asses around here again I can't promise _nothin'._" The dark look on the assassin's face was nothing compared to the one on Satero's. "Yeah?"

The assassin, evidently unimpressed, made a face and flicked them off. The archer beat him over the head with his bow, eyes wide with panic.

"Get goin'." Satero paused, and then laughed softly to himself. He grinned at the archer. "'less ya wanna stay with us? Guess _I_ wouldn't mind."

The archer grabbed his partner and made a run for it, as if Satero had just thrown a bomb at them.

Corosa was already sitting, the grass scratching at him as he opened the case. It was in disarray. The duo had been rifling through his things, but it didn't seem as if anything was missing. Just disorganized. Even the zeny was still there.

He looked up in the direction towards which the archer and assassin had disappeared.

"What'd you do to the archer, anyway?" Corosa asked.

Satero whistled and would not answer.

-----------

**A/N: **MYSTERY! Let us just say it was traumatizing, and Stone will not be recovering _any time soon. _

And don't worry, they'll be back. ...Possibly. ...Sound will, anyway. Stone will probably be trying to poison himself in _their _next chapter.


	18. 018: Can You Hear Me?

**018: CAN YOU HEAR ME?**

"Satero," Corosa muttered, somewhere into the mastersmith's shoulder, or possibly his throat, "You _can't _be asleep."

The continuing lack of a conscious response said otherwise.

"You're hurting my arm," Corosa tried. That was true, at least. Satero wasn't light, and in addition to latching on to Corosa's hair with both hands, he had also managed to roll over and pin down Corosa's one good arm. The mastersmith was going to hear no end of it come morning. Unless Corosa suffocated first.

That seemed fully possible, considering the fact that it was impossible to wake Satero up unless one jammed an axe between his eyes. Corosa always woke earlier than Satero, and always wound up waiting for anywhere from half an hour to three for the mastersmith to wake up as well. Physical violence usually did work, but Corosa did not enjoy kicking Satero awake because Satero tended to latch on to his boots with his teeth.

Corosa fervently wished the light would arrive sooner. Satero's nails were sharp, his grip was tight, and Corosa was going to have the worst headache on the face of the earth in the morning. That, and the smell of the mastersmith was going to stay with him for the rest of his life. Sweat, leather, something metallic that could have been the lingering scent of blood. It wasn't altogether unpleasant, but the man still needed a wash. Then again, Corosa probably did too. He made a note to drown them both in the next river they came across.

Corosa tried to get his arm out from under the mastersmith once more, to no avail. He couldn't feel his fingers now. It made him wonder what life would be like without _either _arm.

The thought made him wince. Never mind. Life was miserable enough with one amputation.

Still, unless Satero rolled off him soon, Corosa felt he was going to end up with cut-off circulation to a vital limb and even more misery than before.

His legs were causing him no small amount of discomfort, too, due to the fact that they were splayed at an awkward angle in order to avoid contact with Satero's. He tried shifting them backwards. After the initial twinge of pain, he decided the only way they were going to bend any more was by breaking in a new joint somewhere in his thighs.

Maybe this was why they needed to set up night watches. At least, with one man awake, they wouldn't wind up like this again.

Corosa wondered what Satero wanted with his hair, anyway.

"I wish you'd let go," Corosa muttered, entertaining the notion of kicking Satero until he woke up, or was forced away. At least, if neither happened, Satero would have to deal with some nasty bruises for a while. Though – worse than that, actually. No kicking, Corosa told himself sourly. Not with Satero's leg in the condition it was.

There had to be some other way of getting the damn mastersmith off him.

Corosa thought hard.

"I'm going to bite you," he said. There was not an ounce of humor in his voice.

No reply.

Corosa grimaced, braced himself mentally, and then sunk his teeth into Satero's throat.

It had the desired effect. And then some.

Satero attempted to combine all the curses he knew into one sentence, and managed to come out with a horrifying mutation of a scream.

And instead of shoving Corosa away, as any normal man would have done, Satero banged their heads together—causing Corosa's skull to attempt an escape by vibrating its way out of his ears—then tried to knee him in the groin. Corosa's body acted first and managed to twist himself out of the way, while flailing his legs and deflecting Satero with his feet. Satero settled for rolling on top of him and pinning him to the ground instead. He was just about to smash his fist into Corosa's face before his mind caught up with his body.

"Wait, what the _hell_?" he demanded, unclenching his fist.

"You wouldn't wake up," Corosa growled. He was not taking kindly to the attack, especially the one that had been aimed between his legs. Meanwhile, his skull still hadn't given up its escape attempt, and now felt like it was expanding.

"It's midnight! What the hell did you want me to wake up for? _Why the hell did you bite me?_" Satero's tone of voice was fluctuating between bewildered and infuriated. Possibly injured.

"You grabbed me," Corosa muttered. "Mind getting off?"

"No. Yes. No. Uhm. Shit. What'd I do?"

"Grab my hair. In your sleep. And you'd pinned down my arm." Corosa was only a word away from biting Satero again. Satero had a knee jammed into Corosa's shin, one hand wrapped around Corosa's wrist, and the remaining hand holding down Corosa's other leg.

"Yeah, but did ya have to _bite _me, you fucker?" Satero's confusion was burying itself in a rapidly growing flood of anger.

"What else was I supposed to do? You wouldn't wake up. Will you let me go _now?_" Corosa was resisting the urge to deliver his own knee-to-groin, courtesy of his headache.

They glared at each other for a while. Or at least, Corosa assumed Satero was glaring at him. He still could not see clearly in the dark. The only thing he could tell for certain was that Satero's grip on his wrist had just tightened, but his knee had shifted to the ground, and they were both breathing hard.

Also, Satero still had not gotten off.

"I am going to bite you again," Corosa said.

Satero laughed. "Try me, fucker."

Corosa was tempted. But his mind cut in above his instinct, frantically waving around a comparison of Corosa's quite normal teeth to Satero's ungodly sharp ones. Instinct hesitated. A conclusion was drawn, somewhat rapidly.

"No."

"Hah. 'S what I _thought_, bastard."

----------

**A/N: **SO WHAT _DID _HAPPEN TO THE ARCHER IN THE LAST CHAPTER?(1) AND DOES SATERO EVER GET OFF COROSA? _The world may never know!_

B-b-by the way please don't try to kill me.

This chapter brought to you by a certain authorlady high on fanart (tinyurl dot com slash yvmwox – or linked to in my profile). Therefore, credit goes to Rizuchan for the idea behind this one. Go shower her with love, you guys.

(1) One of the reviewers sorta guessed right. (It was _obviously_ Rizu. :D)


	19. 019: Broken Pieces

**019: BROKEN PIECES**

Corosa did not even want to know. He knew they were out of money, having restocked on ammunition as soon as possible, and he knew they had nothing to sell – his own weapons aside, which he _hoped_ had not been sold_ – _yet somehow Satero had gotten enough alcohol to almost drink himself into oblivion.

Huh. They were near...Geffen, weren't they? Corosa shuddered. But he was far away enough to think logically. What little he knew of Geffen gave him no reason to bring to mind the sort of situation Satero looked like he'd just rolled out of. A situation that most likely involved a fight. Corosa had gotten blood on his fingers, when he'd reached down to make sure the thing that was supposedly Satero was actually living. Geffen? Tavern brawls? Well, Corosa wouldn't know.

He looked down in Satero's direction. The idea of Satero engaging in tavern brawls was not a surprising one. Possibly he'd won. Or he'd run away before he could lose. Corosa didn't know. He'd only _just _found the mastersmith, sprawled out in the middle of the road, and that was only because Corosa had walked over his arm.

Aside from the initial swearing, Satero hadn't given any sign of life. Now he finally made an effort to speak, which wound up in him muttering something unintelligible. It sounded vaguely like 'don't ask', albeit with five times as many syllables.

"I wasn't going to," Corosa said, voice deadened by lack of sleep.

Satero groaned. Corosa was frankly surprised that he could still pull off such a complicated task.

"Ya. Soun' like. Shi'," Satero said, taking the effort to pronounce properly. But there was a too-long pause between each word, disconnections, and Corosa was sure that Satero was only managing by sheer willpower.

"We're up early. It's not even the crack of dawn." Corosa was tempted to wholly blame Satero for his insomnia.

"Uhm. Yeah. An'..." Satero drew out the 'a', while trying to put together the rest of his sentence, which came out garbled despite his efforts. He made a noise that would have been a curse if he'd been sober, and fell silent.

"I'm up because you weren't there when you were supposed to be," Corosa said, though Satero had not asked.

Corosa revealed that much, but did not admit that he had nearly driven himself into a panic when he'd realized. Into as much as a panic as a man working on less than an hour of sleep could get, anyway. Possibly a little more than that.

Men like Satero did not walk in and out of one's life. And if someone like Satero did, Corosa would be convinced that something was dreadfully wrong. Corosa knew himself to be far from social, yet there was always a lingering sense that if Satero did leave, he'd just have lost something important. Twins? Corosa didn't like to think so. But the possibility was there. The possibility was _more _than simply 'there'.

He sighed and carefully set his guncase down, now severely battered from their previous encounter with the assassin-and-archer-turned-thieves. Despite the abuse, it was still serviceable. And considering the unlikeliness of Satero getting up, Corosa instead chose to sit down, not at all inclined to try and persuade the mastersmith to move. No doubt Satero would bitch mightily come morning. Corosa would blame the alcohol then.

"Look. Wha' I got." Satero somehow managed to find Corosa's knee while both drunk and blind, a feat Corosa thought deserved some sort of reward. His attention, maybe. He shook himself out of his thoughts and substituted touch for sight, finding Satero's hand with his own. Corosa frowned to himself, running his fingers over flesh and over something that was definitely not flesh. Something hard. Wet. Cold.

The mastersmith grabbed his hand and squeezed.

Corosa's skin broke on the glass shards Satero was clutching between his fingers.

"What the hell?" Corosa asked, wincing at the sting. Natural instinct told him to yank his hand away. Intelligence told him doing so would slide the shards over his skin and leave even worse cuts.

"I won," Satero said, in a sing-song voice.

Insane, Corosa decided. The mastersmith was utterly insane. Running on alcohol only made him worse.

"You. Bleedin'?" Satero asked. His fingers snapped down around Corosa's palm once more. Corosa swore at him, before he started to wonder what sort of damage Satero was doing to his _own _hands.

Satero answered his own question. "Yeah. Mm-hm. Huh."

That was all the warning Corosa ever got.

The next moment the mastersmith yanked down on his hand, hard, harder than a drunkard should have been able to pull. Corosa felt like the bastard was trying to dislocate his shoulder. Something in the corner of his mind clicked, realized that pulling back _would _conclude in the dislocation of said shoulder, and promptly decided that his body should go entirely limp. He landed hard on his knees. Both fortunately and unfortunately, he did not land on Satero.

And he forgot about everything else in the light of what happened next.

It was almost the same like before, he thought inanely. Hard, where Satero's teeth were concerned. Wet. Not cold, far from it, but the shock was nearly enough to make him go numb.

He could not move his hand away. Blades on all sides. Top and bottom, Satero's teeth; behind, the shards between Satero's fingers; and worse still what Corosa's fingers encountered in front. A different sort of blade, maybe, but still one nevertheless.

Satero's tongue curled around Corosa's index finger. Slow. Almost gentle.

Corosa swore, risking the threat of more scrapes by trying to twist his hand free. It did result in more, and failed to result in freedom. He tried again, but faltered briefly when Satero probed at the deepest cut. The cut stung like hell upon contact. It felt as if Satero was trying to widen it.

"Get...ah. No. Shit, no." Corosa wondered whether he ought to try stomping on the man. He wondered if that would result in him losing all his fingers. He realized that would lead to no end of trouble. And his own suicide.

Satero made a soft noise, a sort of hum, raised himself up until sitting, licked another cut. The sting was not as bad as the contact. Corosa wished desperately for another hand. Feet weren't nearly as versatile. In the absence of his other arm, he tried to maneuver his fingers out of the way instead, curling them away.

Satero's teeth started to close down.

Corosa's panic, slow in building, took on a burst of speed.

He swung his knee up and down into Satero's stomach, jerking his hand back at the same time. Glass and teeth both dragged across his skin. The pain was secondary to the fact that his hand was free from Satero's tongue, although the mastersmith's nails were still digging into his wrist. And Corosa's mind could not decide whether _that _was worse than the fact that Satero's other hand was too high up on Corosa's thigh for his own comfort.

Corosa bit back some manner of noise when Satero's grip dug in, nails and hands both painful and too-warm, even through cloth. Corosa slammed his knee in again, putting more weight behind it.

This time it elicited a better response. The mastersmith let off a stream of vulgarities and tried to shove Corosa off.

"Oh, you _bitch,_" Satero muttered, voice reflecting a worrying amount of pain, words far clearer than they had been before. "You--"

Corosa did not wait to hear the rest. He slid his leg off and twisted his hand out of Satero's grip, then made what was thus far his most undignified retreat -- a mad scramble backwards that was only stopped when he was up on his feet and he tripped over himself.

He stopped then. Partly to catch his breath, and mostly to try and recover from what had just happened.

A glance backwards revealed nothing. It was still too late at night for that, still too dark, and there was no noise. Corosa took another few steps away, halting quickly, half-expecting to walk straight into the mastersmith. No such thing happened. Only when he tripped himself up again did he stop worrying.

He flexed his fingers, numbly taking stock. All digits present and accounted for. Felt like a multitude of small cuts. They'd scab over. Bother him like hell for a few days, especially the ones between his fingers and on his knuckles. All that was going to be inconsequential, considering the fact that he would, eventually, have to deal with Satero. If he wasn't so drunk that he'd forget everything by morning, something that Corosa made note to desperately pray for.

But those last words. '_Oh, you bitch.' _Too sharp, too clear, too much like the daytime Satero when he hadn't been anywhere near alcohol for at least two days. It was too immediate a change. People did not sober that quickly, not in Corosa's experience, especially when they were as drunk as Satero had been. Had _seemed_. At first.

Corosa looked backwards again, eyes narrowing even in the dark.

"Satero?" he asked, warily.

He did not know what he'd been hoping for.

A response. Yes. But what sort?

The silence provided no answers.

----------

**A/N: **School's a bitch, which explains the lack of updates. Alas, I have not forgotten about these two, and _they_ _will suffer. _Corosa 'specially. Since Satero is probably a damn masochist or something, fuck him.

So, uhm, about this chapter...

Oh god. Things are _happening_. ;;

(Almost 20 chapters and 20k words and I'm stillworrying that this all went too fast. Thus I think I need to start revealing a different side of at least _one _of the cripples.)


	20. 020: All That I Have

**020: ALL THAT I HAVE**

The shards of glass weren't much to go off, but it was all Corosa had. He'd completely lost track of Satero after what had happened last night, hadn't started to _care_ until the light filtered in between the branches, raw and burning. There, standing in beneath the dying shadows, it suddenly struck him as to how oddly silent it was. His mind had long since reduced the background noise of the forest into a low buzz, near-unnoticeable in comparison to anything else. But there's no longer anything else to _compare _it to, because Corosa had driven Satero off -- or was it the other way around? Other way around...he would have liked to believe that.

He set his case down and flipped it open, all for no particular reason aside from the need for something to do. His hands -- hand -- had a life of its own. Moved on its own. Always needed movement, which resulted in useless actions sprouting from the depths of nowhere. Corosa didn't know where the habit had sprung from. Birth, maybe, or the amputation. Perhaps Anaya had complained of it once or twice. His memory doesn't reach that far back.

Would Satero still be around? This was where they'd parted ways last night. The glass was still there. Corosa found himself wondering why Satero had bothered to come all this way, from Geffen to this road, carrying those shards between his fingers all the way only to drop them later. Drunk, Corosa decided. That was the easiest explanation.

Corosa closed the case without ever having touched its contents. Then he straightened his back, took a step away, and frowned at it. The thing slowed him down, was always a bitch to deal with when anything attacked him out of nowhere. More so now that he only had one hand. But it was a necessity.

He turned his back on it, marking the spot out and committing it to memory. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noted the sharpness of sunlight on glass and how it the light looked like a razor, edges tapering to solid points. But he strode off down the road before he could commit_ that_ to memory.

----------------

Satero appeared shortly after the gun was shot off, and contrary to Corosa's memory of him, his footsteps _could_ be silent. Corosa had sworn at whatever had been rustling in the bushes behind him, and then turned around to come face-to-face with what looked like a damncorpse.

He immediately jumped back, gun halfway raised before he recognized the teeth and the cigarette dangling from between.

"Hey," Satero said. He raised a hand in salute. Before he let it fall back to his side, he pulled the cigarette out to drop it on the floor.

The man looked _dead. _There were scratches on his face, some of them looking fresh, the others scabbed over. No bruises that Corosa could see, but Satero moved like his bones were about to break.

"Was lookin' for ya," Satero said, taking a small step forwards. Then he laughed, and raised an eyebrow at the gun. "Ya can put that down, I ain't -- gonna kill ya, or anythin'."

Corosa wondered if that was some unintentional reference to last night. Nevertheless, he let his hand drop. "Where were you?" Innocent enough of a question.

"Told ya. Searchin'." Satero shrugged, then winced. Only then did Corosa notice that the mastersmith wasn't looking at him. Odd -- usually was the other way around. But in the light of everything, perhaps it was only to be expected.

"Sorry. I wandered off." Corosa averted his own gaze as well. He felt like he was invading Satero's privacy, watching him while Satero wasn't returning the stare.

"Yeah, I figured. Nah. It's okay, I did too. I, uh, went back. Actually."

"Went back to where?" Corosa turned to face him, then.

Satero muttered something that seemed to involve Geffen, and as far as Corosa was concerned, he did not need to know anything more than that. Things were easy enough to piece together from there. The pieces _were _all there. It was not a hard puzzle.

"In the dark," Corosa muttered. Soft enough that Satero didn't hear him, and Corosa decided not to call him out on it. "Are you..." Corosa shakes his head, and decides not to take the lengthier way about it. His voice changes, sharpens. "Did you get into more fights?"

Satero finally met his eyes, blinking. "Yeah."

As if that was the only right answer. Perhaps it was, for Satero. Corosa wasn't sure what was and wasn't normal for Satero now, never had been. Hadn't known the man for long enough. Same in appearance, maybe, and differed everywhere else.

"Are you alright, then?" It was a space-filler of a question. Corosa didn't know what else to say in that awkward silence.

"Yeah. 's nothin'." Satero took another small step closer. He hadn't taken his eyes of Corosa after he'd finally turned. All of a sudden, he jerked his head away again. This time to look at something to Corosa's right. "You? You okay?"

Corosa runs his hand through his hair. "Yes." Somewhat. Some of those small scrapes from yesterday turned out to be deeper than he'd thought. He hadn't been able to tell properly in the dark, when relying on little more than the messages of pain. But it was still nothing serious, nothing he would not recover from.

"Just a nuisance while shooting," he added. He'd just found _that_ out, having shot off at whatever seemed ready to sneak up on him. Each cut had stung when he'd twitched his fingers.

The area around Geffen, what was here? Anything dangerous? He couldn't recall. Maybe it didn't matter -- except Satero was still limping from that shot through his leg. Oh, that'd been Corosa's fault.

"No, I mean--" Satero cut himself off to spend a moment contemplating his words. Finally, he sighed and muttered, "I mean, like, yesterday. Last night. All that."

Corosa tilted his head back to the side, contemplating Satero and the look of obvious guilt spreading over the other's face. Eyes averted, brows pinched together, mouth curved downwards. Somehow, Corosa got the sense that Satero had been wallowing in something very close to misery for the whole night. Corosa couldn't quite find the right amount of sympathy, though.

"Were you drunk?" Corosa asked. It was an honest question. He had his doubts.

"Yeah," Satero said immediately. Was that _too_ quickly? Corosa couldn't decide on that, either. But it the nervousness was definitely there, in the way Satero kept flicking at his hair. In the way that neither of them said anything for a long while.

Then--

"Okay,_ sort of," _Satero started, voice sounding somewhat stronger than before. His steps became longer -- almost his usual, confident pace, if one ignored the injury. He closed the distance between them without hesitancy.

He laughed, nervously, a breathy sort of chuckle. "Listen -- I, I didn't know what the hell I was thinkin', okay? I was drunk._ Half-_drunk. An' more than half stupid--"

But Corosa was already trying to pull himself away. Satero, apparently subconsciously, put both hands on Corosa's shoulders and held him there, fingers tightening in. And all of a sudden Corosa decided he didn't want to hear the explanation. It'd only make things worse. The reason wasn't as simple as the influence of alcohol running through Satero's veins. Corosa could see that it'd been something more than that; now he merely did not want to know what that 'something' _was. _

"No, it's alright," Corosa said, wearily. "I don't need to hear it. So long as that's the last time." He flicked his gaze back towards the mastersmith for an instant. Corosa didn't think he'd seen Satero look more miserable at any point in his life -- pure misery. Not even a hint of what seemed to be the usual, _obligatory_ irritation or mockery.

Hopefully that meant something.

Satero tilted his head back, opened his mouth, and then shut it. He twisted his lips into a crooked frown and studied Corosa.

Finally, he asked, "Ya hate me?"

Corosa sighed. "What sort of question is that? Would it matter? You'd follow--"

Crooked frown into a crooked smile. "Damn right I would."

And that was it, wasn't it? Corosa was sure the subject of last night would eventually arise again, at some point when they both gathered up enough anger at each other to bring it back. But until then, he was glad enough to leave it as it was. Forge some sort of fragile peace.

Too tired for this shit.

Corosa closed his eyes. "Then just leave it there. Don't let it happen again."

"I swear I will," Satero muttered back.

Shrugging Satero's hands off, Corosa took a step back and said, "I'll hold you to that. May we leave now, then? I left my things somewhere behind."

And though Satero had agreed, when Corosa opened his eyes to look at him, it was easy enough to see that the man still seemed unsatisfied. Wanting something else. Or perhaps he was just exhausted as well. Satero's head was cocked to the side, hair falling over his face, eyes blank, narrowed, and mouth curled downwards again. Could be the look of someone disappointed or someone who desperately needed rest. Satero certainly fit that last description.

"Did you sleep at all?" Corosa asked.

Satero snorted derisively. Whatever had been hanging around him, be it weariness or dissatisfaction, evaporated somewhat. "Hah. No."

That answered that question, then.

"Mm. You want to rest?" Corosa had gone through sleepless nights, more than one at a time. And his sleep was usually unrestful in any case. Satero, on the other hand, was used to resting.

Satero shrugged at the question. Then he took a single step, as if to move past Corosa.

Something blanked out, and Corosa couldn't recall whether it was him or Satero. Him, he thought, after it had ended. He couldn't recall anything of the moment except for a brief dizziness in which he suddenly was no longer sure who he was, let alone where he was. All he recalled was the sparkle of gold and silver, cold metal against his lips, the taste of rust on his tongue, and then what seemed like an explosion from the inside out -- _floor leaking away like so much water draining into a darkness deeper than miles can measure -- _

With a dismissive flick of his wrist, Satero shoved past Corosa.

"Fuck you," he said, then put his hand over a yawn. "C'mon, let's go."

------------

**AN:**AND YOU THOUGHT I WAS DEAD

thank you, that is all.

also dear ffnet please stop mashing my italicized words together with their neighbors that's not nice some of them don't like wordsex


	21. 021: Stars

**021: STARS**

For a while all Corosa could hear was the sound of the wilderness around them, and the lake not too far away.

Then, out of the night-- _"Fuck_, would ya look at that?" And a shove to his good shoulder.

Corosa didn't mind the rude awakening. Only because it hadn't been an awakening; Corosa hadn't been asleep, and had no intention of doing so within the next few days. Weeks, if he could stretch it out that long. He wasn't about to abandon Satero, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't mistrustful.

"What?" he asked, eyes flickering over to the dark shape next to him. It was busy getting up.

"Shut it and jus' _look_, will ya?" Satero tugged on his sleeve. A tug from Satero was a yank from everyone else, so Corosa didn't have much of a choice in getting up. But as soon as he was sitting, he twisted his arm out of Satero's grasp and surreptitiously edged away. Closeness was not something Corosa appreciated. He remembered awkward hugs. Cold eyes on his. A smile he never returned.

But when Corosa finally turned his gaze on whatever it was that so enraptured Satero, he didn't immediately protest the arm slung around his shoulder.

Just a bright streak against the sky, he thought. Still gleaming as he followed its arcing path, a clean slice through the darkness that flashed and disappeared into the fade of the horizon.

"Yes," he said, sounding entirely unimpressed. He made a pointed attempt to shrug Satero's arm off.

"Shooting fucking star!"

And for a moment, Corosa could just see Satero's face in the darkness, even without light. The image was sharp in his head, the wide eyes, the teeth drawn back into an innocent grin. Childlike, for a man of thirty. Especially so for a man of thirty usually seen lugging a battleaxe around.

Corosa glanced back towards the sky, but there were no afterimages. "You see them a lot, this time of the year."

"Aw, fuck you," Satero laughed. He gave Corosa a shove to the back of the head and with that he was off, vanishing, disappearing into the forest faster than a cripple was allowed.

"Shit," Corosa said to himself, awkwardly getting up off the ground as Satero's mocking, jeering laughter ricocheted through the air to him.

It's far too dark for this, he thought. Maybe if he stayed right where he was, Satero would come back himself. That was the _logical_ course of action. Never mind any emotional attachment Satero might have towards him, _no_ man wandered around at night injured and weaponless.

Except there were things in the world that overruled logic, and Corosa (picking his way through the dark, toeing the ground in front of him, searching for snags and tree roots and whatever else might trip him up), Corosa grudgingly supposed Satero was one of those things.

-------------

The chase went like this.

Corosa took fifty-four steps, stopped when his right arm nudged into a tree, and yelped when Satero's arm shot out to smack him upside the head.

"Hey there!" the mastersmith said cheerfully, and this time Corosa could see nothing in his head but the inordinately pleased grin.

"Wipe that off your face," Corosa grumbled. He rubbed his jaw where Satero had hit him, as if trying to scrape the pain off. "I can see your teeth from here." Self-satisfaction brighter than any star, he thought.

"You're a filthy liar," Satero responded, easily, still far too smug.

"I suppose. And It's done me good so far." Corosa reached out, resting his palm against the weathered bark of the tree he'd walked into. "What did you run off for? Just to get another hit in?"

"Ya angry?" Satero asked. The smugness faded away from his voice. Corosa heard him shuffle, leaves crackling under his feet. Then a cough, and a muttered "Sorry."

Corosa tapped his fingers against the trunk. "I'm not angry."

The hit had hurt, but Corosa was willing to accept that that wasn't Satero's fault. Childlike, he thought again. Didn't know his own strength? Corosa always thought smiths needed to have some amount of control, and that mastersmiths needed it sharpened to a point. Perhaps Satero's parents were right; the man would have done better as a knight. Not that Corosa would appreciate him as such. Corosa didn't usually appreciate people whose sole profession was the killing of other people, sometimes including him.

_--you hate the people who remind you of yourself, don't you_

"Yeah, well, _I'm_ still sorry," Satero said, fingers finding Corosa's hair as they usually did. "Hope that doesn't bruise."

"Am I allowed to hit you back if it does?" Corosa escaped Satero's hand and put the tree between them. "Your leg alright? You shouldn't be running."

"Wasn't," Satero whined.

"Technically you shouldn't--"

_"You_ shouldn't be talkin'."

-------------

The argument went like this.

Corosa delivered his side of the dispute from his side of the tree, Satero yelled over him from the other side, and then Satero unanimously won when he stepped over and stifled Corosa by sticking his hand over Corosa's mouth.

"See, I like you better this way," Satero said when Corosa finally stopped trying to pull his hand off. "End of that, now. I'll do whatever the hell I want and...you're not allowed to lose your other arm."

Corosa tried to say _'good luck stopping me when you're one-legged'_, but it all came out incoherent, and he strongly suspected that was exactly what made Satero laugh at him again. There was something pleasing about the laughter, though. A softness around the edges of the otherwise sharp derision, and it lessened Corosa's irritation somewhat. Or maybe it was the smell of Satero's glove; a mess of leather and blood that left a metallic taste on Corosa's tongue when Satero finally let go.

Corosa resisted the urge to spit. "That's it," he said, deadpan as usual. "I'm throwing you into the next river we see."

And Satero only laughed.

"One-armed? One-armed?"

-------------

And the explanation, finally, when they were sprawled in the grass again and after Satero was done bitching about insects and dirt and rocks and everything in the world from Corosa back to Corosa again--

_"I_ was searchin'--"

--for stars, Satero said, but Corosa already knew the answer.

* * *

**Author**: NO I WILL NOT ABANDON THIS STORY I WILL DROWN YOU ALL IN GAY

or rather, Fushi-chou on deviantart (sorry, I don't know your username! ;-;) reminded me that...this dumb thing is still sitting here. oh god. yes. i have to finish it I WILL FINISH IT DAMMIT

hi guys i'm back


	22. 022: Rainbow

**022: RAINBOW**

Satero went chasing after everything, from rainbows to stars to Corosa (whenever he tried to climb trees, or practice shooting, or do anything that involved his only remaining arm). Corosa started to wonder whether such a long period of nothing but the wilderness and Corosa's (silent, banal) company was driving the mastersmith insane. Or whether he'd simply never grown up.

Corosa had given up on persuading Satero to preserve his health and use his leg as little as possible. If Satero was in a good mood, he'd counter that enough time had passed for it to heal. If he was in a bad mood, he'd ignore Corosa and, in fact, run _faster._ It was infuriating, but Corosa eventually came to the conclusion that he'd simply have to deal with it. There was no winning with the man. So this time, when Satero blinked ahead at the road and caught sight of the rainbow-tinted mist, Corosa didn't stop him when he ran out ahead. 

That, and it gave Corosa some time to himself. It was a hard change going from two years of solitude to constant company. He wasn't quite used to it, and Satero's stubbornness didn't make things any easier. That, and the disconcerting things he'd done back near Geffen. They hadn't mentioned that period of time since they hit the road again. It was an uneasy peace, but Corosa was willing to settle for it.

"You're_ so_ goddamn slow," Satero growled, when Corosa finally caught up. The anger in his voice wasn't genuine. This time, Corosa didn't even have to look at Satero's expression to be sure of that. 

He looked up anyway, and was rewarded with an eyeful of Satero's grin. Then he looked away to glance at the sky. There wasn't much to see through the mist. He supposed the mist itself _was_ rather breathtaking, shot through with rays and stained with colors, but Corosa didn't care much for scenery.

"If you'd wanted me to follow--" he started, but wasn't allowed to finish.

"_Don't_ ya start bitchin' at me." Satero smacked him on the back of his head, causing Corosa to stumble forward a few steps, swearing as he nearly lost balance. Satero caught him with one hand, as the other was carrying Corosa's guncase for him.

"You hit too hard," Corosa grumbled, in all seriousness. _Any_ hit landed on him was too hard. 

"You're_ such _a little bitch. C'mon, let's keep go-- who the _fuck _is that?" 

Something in Satero's voice, a sharpening, a grinding, made Corosa look up, suspicion trickling its way through his body again. But Satero grabbed his head and forced him to turn his attention elsewhere, ahead of them. Further ahead into the mist, where things blurred and ran into each other.

There was something ahead. Some silhouette, some parody of a human figure drifting through the fog towards them. There was something vaguely unsettling about it, but Corosa attributed it to the mist. He frowned and groped for his gun, quickly trying to recall whether there were any human-shaped monsters around here.

"Wait," Satero muttered, putting a hand over Corosa's. But at the same time, he still pushed Corosa behind him. "I don't think it's--"

The thing came closer. Corosa could have sworn the mist swirled unnaturally for a split second, but the next moment nothing seemed out of place and the silhouette had come into full view.

Now Corosa couldn't recall why he'd been unsettled by its appearance. The stranger looked entirely harmless, if a bit..._contained,_ Corosa thought. That was the only word he could think up. It was the newcomer's coiled shoulders, the glare from beneath his hair, the hands shoved into his pockets that suggested a folding inwards of the self. That, and he was small. Almost tiny. Far shorter than either Satero or Corosa.

And he looked just as wary -- and human -- as Corosa did.

"Didn't think anyone else came this way," the stranger said. He sounded hostile right off the bat. Almost as if to further enforce this impression, he swept around Satero and Corosa but didn't continue on down the road, instead turning around to observe them from behind. He hadn't taken his hands out of his pockets yet. That was what Corosa kept his attention on.

"Are you twins?" the stranger snapped, suddenly. As if this were something infuriating.

"No," Corosa answered, trying to ease his wrist out of Satero's grip. Satero had decided to grab on at some point, and it was beginning to unnerve Corosa. He didn't like the feeling of -- well, having no hands. Having no _free _hands.

"Not even brothers," Satero added, taking no notice of Corosa's attempts to free himself. 

"Huh," the stranger said, and Corosa thought he heard contempt. At the least, there was disbelief. "Where are you goin'?"

"Why?" Satero asks, meeting the stranger's hostility with his own. Corosa could feel him bristle. "Listen, we don't even know your _name_ an' you're askin' us--"

"Blackened," was the terse answer, cutting Satero off in the middle of his sentence. "Only because I have a shitty real name. What about you?"

"Doesn't matter," Satero said, sounding just as irritated. He turned around and stormed off, dragging Corosa along with him.

"What the _crap_ is your problem?" Blackened came after them, moving faster than Corosa expected. He seemed to glide on right over the ground, cutting through the mist to catch up with them.

"You sure as hell shouldn't be talkin'," Satero hissed, coming to a halt. Only then did Corosa manage to twist his arm free. He immediately took a step back, to dissuade Satero from making another grab for it.

Satero was too preoccupied with chewing Blackened out to notice. He took a step as well, but away from Corosa, towards Blackened. 

"_You're _the one who came in and started kicking the shit up," he continued. "Who the _hell_ are you, anyway?"

Blackened seemed taken aback, but only for a moment. His surprise was quickly replaced with anger again, eyes narrowing and almost disappearing under his hair. "Shit, all _right,_ I'll move my ass out" --and he immediately turned away, looking even further drawn inwards than before-- 

"--_Just_."

Just one word, and nothing more, a whisper hanging in the air that only Corosa seemed to hear. He turned to look at Satero, but the mastersmith was limping off again, apparently dead set against hearing another word. So it was left to Corosa to turn to Blackened, who had stopped with his back turned towards them.

"What?" Corosa asked, for the sake of wrapping things up.

"Just...you seen another priest around? Missing an eye. Sorta tall and skinny." The words came out of Blackened's voice in a rush, and were curiously devoid of any emotion. None of the aggression of before.

"No," Corosa said. They hadn't seen anyone around, lately. 

"Oh," Blackened replied. Then he started walking again, without another word.

Corosa was all ready to turn around and catch up to Satero and forget this encounter entirely, except he couldn't help but replay one sentence in his mind and then concentrate on one word. _'Another _priest'?

"Are you with the Church?" Corosa asked, looking back over his shoulder. But Blackened was already rather far and Corosa's voice wasn't loud to begin with, so he was forced to take a few quick steps after Blackened and repeat his question, raising his voice.

"What?" Blackened turned around. He didn't look any different from before. Just as moody, just as sulky. "Yeah. I am. Was there for a while, anyway."

Corosa weighed the options. Satero and Blackened hadn't hit it off very well. Hadn't hit it off at _all,_ in fact, and for once Corosa couldn't blame Satero in the slightest. But that didn't change certain matters, like the fact that Satero had two injuries that needed attention. Corosa's treatment was hardly any substitution for a priest's.

"Satero -- the mastersmith back there -- he has some wounds that need looking at..." Corosa trailed off as soon as he saw Blackened's lip curl into a sneer.

"Are you _really _askin' me to--"

"Yes," Corosa interrupted, finding the general atmosphere of animosity starting to affect him as well. But there really was no helping it; the priest's attitude wasn't entirely conducive to a cordial conversation.

The sneer disappeared, replaced with a sudden blank look. It was almost as disconcerting as Blackened's previous resentment.

"What injuries?" Blackened asked, starting to circle. _That_ was certainly distracting, if not downright worrying. Movements more befitting an assassin than a priest. As if Blackened was sizing Corosa up, never mind the ridiculous height difference.

"Gunshot through the leg. And a cut through his shoulder." Corosa thought a while more, then came to the conclusion of, "That's all."

"Huh. How long ago? Mind you, I'm askin' _you _because I don't think he'd answer." Blackened stopped circling, leaving him between Corosa and Satero, who was now somewhere far down the road. 

Corosa began to walk towards Satero again, hoping that Blackened would follow. "I don't know. A week? A week and a half? Maybe two..." He couldn't quite keep track. Corosa never saw any need to, not when he was by himself. Not when he and Satero were by themselves, either.

"That's a while," Blackened said, following just as Corosa had hoped. "Infection shoulda set in by now, if you didn't get someone else to do anything 'bout it."

Corosa shrugged. "I did what I could." 

"Whatever. Just hold him down and shut 'im up, I don't think he'll like me treating him," Blackened said grimly, rolling his sleeves up.

A few moments later, Blackened was proved entirely correct. Satero stared at Corosa as Corosa tried to explain, and then proceeded to swear and make a run for it.


	23. 023: Annoyance

**023: ANNOYANCE**

"What an asshole," Blackened muttered, shoving his supplies back into the bag they'd come from. It disappeared somewhere under the folds of his robe. After this fiasco, Corosa thought, he'd rather never see Blackened or his tools at work again. Or at least, not at work on Satero.

"I suppose," Corosa said through ragged breaths, sounding dubious only for Satero's sake.

"No _magic? _What the shit kind of priest _are_ you?" Satero howled, from somewhere at their feet.

It hadn't been very neat operation, Corosa thought. 'Not neat', in the sense that in order to sew Satero's shoulder up, they had to force Satero down, and because Blackened needed both hands it'd been up to Corosa to hold Satero still, and because Corosa only had one arm--

--They'd spent most of the time with Corosa's legs wrapped around Satero's waist in order to keep both of his arms trapped, and Corosa's hand in Satero's hair to keep the mastersmith from biting anyone. Corosa also spent most of the time bitterly wondering why Satero had shark teeth and sorely missing his two-armed days.

And it'd been a horribly _awkward_ position, made worse when Blackened got to the business of stitching and Satero struggles became more panicked.

"This wouldn't'a happened if you were a halfway decent priest," Satero groaned, pointing a finger at Blackened.

"Ain't my fault I can't do magic -- and you oughta consider yourself lucky that you didn't get an infection," Blackened said. He brushed himself off and made a face at his hands, as if touching Satero had given him some unspeakable disease.

Satero tugged at Corosa's leg and whined. "Help me up."

"It can't be that bad," Corosa said, not amused in the slightest. Especially when Satero swore and pounded the side of his fist into Corosa's ankle.

"Don't know how you managed to survive. Actually, don't know why the fuck it was still _bleeding_ after all this-- never mind," Blackened sighed, looking at the dark expression on Satero's face. Black looked away towards Corosa instead. Corosa thought he saw pity on the priest's face, and for once he could understand where it was coming from.

"Am I getting paid for this?" Blackened asked. The line of his mouth suggested that, contrary to all appearances, the matter of payment was not a question. That was a little worrying to Corosa, particularly because they had no money.

In that case, perhaps it was good thing that Blackened was magicless.

"Paid? _Hell_ no," Satero said, having finally gotten to his feet. He spat and rubbed at his shoulder stitches. Blackened winced and bit his lip, twisting his fingers into his sleeves.

"We...don't have anything to pay you with," Corosa corrected, a little more tactfully. It was lucky that Blackened seemed slightly more mature than Satero (though there was a rather large age difference, wasn't there? Satero was at least thirty, and Blackened didn't look much older than eighteen), because after a moment's hesitation, Blackened chose to discuss the matter with Corosa rather than Satero.

"Really?" Blackened asked. He glanced pointedly at the gun case.

"Fuck you," said Satero, noting what Blackened was looking at.

"Weaponry," Corosa said, slower than Satero by a beat. And he felt trepidation coming on. Blackened was going to ask for the guns as payment, wasn't he? Even if he couldn't or wouldn't use them, there was always a willing buyer. Except that Corosa did not want to part with any of his firearms.

He braced himself for the demand.

To his surprise, Blackened merely sighed and crossed his arms.

"Of course. My luck," he said, glaring at Satero, who glared right back. Blackened looked away first. Corosa suspected that was because in addition to the glare, Satero had brought his teeth into the contest.

"Never mind then," Blackened snapped. Corosa edged back towards Satero, ready to leave, watching Blackened out of the corner of his eye and vaguely wondering how such a tiny body could contain that much anger. As he watched, Blackened spun around and stalked off, shoving his hands into his pocket and--

--freezing.

It was the strangest freeze Corosa had ever seen, quick jerk inwards of the shoulders and a hunching of the back. Nothing particularly worrying in that, except Corosa suddenly had the impression of an explosion, somewhere, beneath the surface of someone's skin -- vertebrae snapping outwards _like the doors and the floorboards--_

But when Corosa blinked, the impression was gone, and Blackened didn't look strange at all. All that remained was a lingering, disquieting sensation of being watched. Corosa turned as Blackened did. Satero was still toying with the stitches, still grimacing.

"Say, actually," said Blackened, walking back towards them with his head tilted to the side. His hair, shoulder-length and shaggy, obscured his eyes. "You could help."

"Oh, shit no. Can we run now?" Satero asked, backing off.

"No. We'll repay him," Corosa said, pulling Satero back.

It was a matter of conscience, for him. That was what he told himself. What it wasn't was a matter of _you're always safer with more people around _-- or if it was, it was purely in the context of being attacked by an _outside _force.  
Nothing else.

Corosa turned to Blackened, who still didn't look much happier than before. "What do you want?"

"That kid I was talking about before," Blackened said. He ended his demand there, as if that explained everything. Corosa recalled a brief mention of a name, but not much more than that.

His confusion evidently showed on his face, because Blackened proceeded to give his memory a prod. "Mukhari Sharak? One-eyed priest, went missing 'bout a week and a half ago."

"What, you want us to look for him?" Satero asked, jerking his head back in Blackened's direction. "Shouldn't that be the Church's job, or something?"

Blackened paused, before echoing, "The_ Church?"_

Then he laughed -- a twist of his mouth upwards and a widening of his eyes. The expression looked downright deranged, but that could be attributed to the fact that until now, Corosa hadn't seen Blackened do anything but scowl. Or perhaps it was the sound of the laughter itself. It started and stayed somewhere low in Blackened's throat, breathy and halting, never quite making it past his teeth. That was it, Corosa decided. It was the noise.

"More likely -- it's the Church's fault -- he's missing," Blackened continued, trying to speak through his laughter. He coughed and steadied himself, reverting back to his previous frown with disturbing ease. Though Corosa could still see the corner of his lip twitch every now and then.

"Whatever," Satero said, arching an eyebrow, still picking at the stitches. "'s not _our_ job -- get yourself a stalker or somethin'. Or an assassin, if that's the way you're--"

"Can't," Blackened said shortly. "Just as broke as you are. 'sides, most people would rather he go missing forever."

Oddly enough, that seemed to spark some actual interest in Satero, rather than the logical effect of making him even more suspicious. He stopped flicking at his stitches -- to the obvious relief of Blackened, whose shoulders visibly uncoiled -- and leaned forwards.

"What, got himself a lot of enemies?" Satero asked, curiously.

Blackened's frown turned into something of a pout, bottom lip sticking out. "Not in that way. No serious enemies, just lots of barkeeps wanting money."

Satero straightened to lean on Corosa's shoulder. _"That_ sort of priest, huh. Why're you looking for him?"

"He's a friend." Blackened seemed angry to admit it. "Why're you askin'?"

"'cause I'm a cocktease and _no_, we're not helpin'," Satero said, abruptly pulling away and yanking Corosa with him. He was grinning again, apparently extraordinarily pleased with himself.

Corosa batted his arm away but didn't do anything more than that. For a priest, Blackened was starting to seem more than a little sinister -- traveling alone, with no magic and nothing else in the way of defense? That wasn't even taking his mannerisms into consideration. But on the other hand, Corosa could see shreds of logic behind the oddities. Take an angry, unloved man, give him friendship and then snatch it away from him, and Corosa could see why Blackened would be traveling alone and defenseless. Desperate measures, he thought.

He wondered if he could only see because of reflections.

"Wait," Corosa said, to Satero.

"Oh, fuck no, you are _not--"_

"Why not?" Corosa watched Black edge closer. Circling again, just like he had when they first came across one another.

Satero's eyes flickered between Corosa and Blackened, then settled on Blackened. He grimaced. "Do you really want to spend more time with _him?_ Me, I've got my share of bitchiness, I don't want--"

"I can hear you," Blackened said.

"So can I, isn't that--"

"We don't have much else on our hands," Corosa pointed out.

Satero snapped his head back towards Corosa.

"So? Doesn't mean--"

"Ignore him," Corosa finally said to Blackened, wearily. Just as usual, arguing with Satero wasn't going to get them anywhere. "Just follow along, he'll get used to you eventually--"

"I -- _what? _No. I will _not_--"

"Thanks," Blackened said, sounding grudgingly grateful. He stopped circling, to Corosa's relief, and when he closed in he did so without the predatory stalk that Corosa had been expecting. But the tension was back in his shoulders, and his attention was entirely on Satero.

"You little -- how the hell do ya expect us to actually find this bastard--"

Satero took to ignoring Blackened's presence and focusing his complaints on Corosa, and Corosa took to quickly walking away and hoping Blackened didn't take the opportunity to sew Satero's mouth shut. Then he heard Blackened mumble something, and the rest of Satero's complaints were aimed at him.

Corosa felt a headache coming on already. It hadn't even been five minutes yet, had it? He wondered if his conscience would let him live with denying Black repayment. It would certainly make life for all of them easier, save, perhaps, the priest they were now looking for. But--

Corosa tried not to look at Satero as the mastersmith stormed past him.

No. Probably not.


	24. 024: Abandoned

**024: ABANDONED**

The one time Corosa dared to leave Blackened and Satero alone, he couldn't help but feel as though he had made a horrible mistake in doing so. They were certainly both asleep when he left, which should have made him feel safer. But it struck a wrong chord in him -- because Blackened had proved himself to be just as bad an insomniac as Corosa. If not worse.

Trying to rear all the children in the world couldn't be worse than trying to preserve the peace between Satero and Blackened. Satero threw insults faster than he chewed through cigarettes, and Blackened held it all inside until he exploded -- about five times a day. Corosa was on the edge of shooting both of them.

It was too much.

He thought half an hour wouldn't hurt-- or rather, wouldn't hurt him any more than usual.

He came back and both of them were awake. It was too dark for Corosa to see them, but he knew because both called out his name at the same time when they heard him approach.

"Where the hell did you go?" Satero asked.

"For a walk. We're not as lost as you thought, the road's over that way," Corosa said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "You're both awake?"

"Yeah, asshole woke me up," Satero said.

"Jackass kicked me," Blackened said, at the same time.

Neither of them sounded as angry as Corosa had expected.

But the worst thing was -- he thought, when he woke up the next morning and had a clearer idea of what was so wrong -- the worst thing was that after that, no one said a word.

* * *

Twelve eleven ten nine eight seven six five four _three two one--_

"Black, ya mind staying with the bastard over here? He won't get any closer than this, trust me."

Corosa blinked and whipped his head around to stare at Satero. That...was far from what he'd expected.

"What?" Blackened asked, looking absolutely outraged. "Why can't you--"

"I've got things to do, an' I'm not leavin' him out here on his own."

"I don't need taking care of," Corosa said, slightly irked by the assumption, especially when Satero was by far the more childish one. More likely to get in trouble.

"I've gotta look for Sharak," Blackened argued.

Satero covered a yawn. "_I'll _do that for you, I bet I know more people there than you do. What, he's got a missin' eye, right? Tendency to make trouble? I can spot that."

"_No--"_

"Shut up, 'less you wanna try dragging 'rosa in with us."

Blackened opened his mouth again, then shut it in a silent snarl.

"Shame really. 's a pretty place," Satero muttered, sticking a thumb between his teeth. Corosa saw his jaw close in a little, but not enough to draw blood. He also saw Blackened curl his lip back even further.

"Oh yeah-- I think I'll finally mail that letter for you," Satero said, turning again to address Corosa. He paused, waiting for a response, and when he received none he rubbed his eyes. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," Corosa said. He barely moved his lips.

"Sure," Satero said, a little dubiously. He glanced up at the sky to squint at the sun. "I don't know how long I'll be gone, 'cause I'm gonna see if someone'll let me use their forge. Hopefully be back before nightfall, though."

"Can't stay longer?" Blackened asked. He crossed his arms. For once, Satero ignored the jab.

Corosa didn't.

_Can't stay longer? she'd asked in a different voice, eyes already narrowed in suspicion.  
She didn't believe him._  
That was alright, because he didn't believe himself, either.  
_So he just ran a hand through her hair,_  
distractedly,  
_the same way he ran his hands through his own hair,  
and it wasn't that much of a difference.  
She had his hair. Not her mother's._  
To him, there was always the feeling that she was something the cat had dragged in.

* * *

Blackened abruptly asked him a question, a long while after Satero headed off towards Al De Baran. The city was out of sight from here, but Corosa thought he could still hear water splashing through the canals. He'd visited the place-- once. _Pretty, _Satero had said. Corosa wished he could see it again.

"What?" Corosa asked, startled by Blackened's voice. Blackened was sitting on the edge of the lake. He'd taken off his shoes and rolled up his pants to stick his feet out into the water.

"I said, you angry at him for leaving?" Blackened asked, leaning back on both hands. "You sure seem like it."

Corosa shook his head.

Blackened shrugged and and breathed in deep. "You know, he took your case with him."

Shit. That was enough to make Corosa look around. The last scraps of memory fled to the back of his mind. The bastard _had _run off with it

Blackened grinned. "He might not be there yet, if you wanna go after him."

"It's not worth it," Corosa said, sitting down next to Blackened and pulling his knees to his chest. "I don't think he'd sell anything, anyway." Satero wasn't going to run off with everything now, not after all this time.

Blackened laughed. It was the same demented laugh he'd had when they first met, and hadn't changed in the slightest. But Corosa had gotten used to it as another one of Blackened's quirks, while Satero still regularly swore to strangle Black for it. The threat usually made Blackened laugh harder.

"Sure," Blackened said, dipping a finger into the water. "Still think we should go after him. Why'd he want you to stay behind, anyway?"

Corosa wished he could avoid the question. "I'd rather stay."

"Huh. What for? Al de Baran's not a bad place." Something about that sentence made Blackened frown, too.

"I'd rather not," Corosa said, not answering.

"Why? You don't like cities?"

"No," Corosa answered. That was innocent enough, wasn't it?

Apparently so. Blackened made no further comment, except to gripe about how Satero probably couldn't spot Mukhari if the missing man hit him in the face at a hundred miles an hour. This was, according to Blackened, an entirely realistic scenario.

"What'd you say his last name was?" Corosa asked, suddenly.

Blackened shook his hair out of his eyes, spitting some out when he accidentally caught it between his teeth. "It's Sha--"

Blackened cut himself off, suddenly jerking his arm forwards to snatch at something in the water. Too late. Corosa saw a glint of metal, slipping through Blackened's fingers and carried back into the deeper parts of the lake. Blackened swore in a voice somewhere between a strangled scream and a whisper, already running off after it, kicking up water as he went.

Then he fell when he reached the drop off, suddenly vanishing into the water with a splash.

"Shit!" The curse exploded out of Corosa's mouth before he could stop it, and likewise he found himself shrugging his coat off and chasing before he knew what he was doing.

The drop off wasn't far from the shoreline. Corosa felt the sediment under his feet suddenly give way to rock, and the rock dropped off into nothing. And there Corosa's entire body suddenly rebelled, twisting and knotting and deciding that _no, _it did not want to leap headfirst into another void--

--too deep. Yawning. And maybe, somewhere, somewhere at the bottom _if there was a bottom_ snapping, cracking, like jaws crushing in from somewhere below too much too loud too often too _much_

Blackened hadn't surfaced yet.

Corosa stared, and did not think, because thinking brought back memories and worst of all fear, and forced himself to dive.

The smiles melted into each other, fused together by too much sunlight.  
Maybe, somewhere, a head turns to hear a splash.

Blackened was somewhere yards _miles? _beneath the surface, getting further and further away with every stroke. Corosa's eyes stung, and he wanted to close them, but closing meant blindness and blindness meant helplessness and helplessness meant _death _and soon he didn't know who was going to die, him or Blackened or all of them at once together and no one would ever know, wasn't that for the best? Who, out there, would lose them? Someone who couldn't even remember her name. Not much lost but a couple of voices.

Corosa  
_can't swim  
with one arm?  
Shit. _

He kicked like hell.

He thought about one night, maybe two, him and a half-asleep and very irritated mastersmith fighting on the ground and Corosa left with nothing but his legs to deflect Satero's stronger, harder blows, and he'd kicked like hell that night too but at least he could _breathe_ that had been his fault, he supposed, except now he can't feel guilty about it because his ears are ringing ringing ringing like they had been back _somewhere else _not here not here not here

But close enough, he thought.

Because there was enough water between him and the surface. Enough that the light was disappearing, not strong enough to pierce through all the water, not strong enough to fuse anything together--  
--_sort of like a ceiling, huh?_

Corosa grabbed Blackened and shot for the surface.

* * *

"I can swim, jackass! I don't need you!" the priest screamed, as soon as they were within reach of air and Corosa could feel his heart piecing itself back together.

"Shut up," Corosa gasped, staring at the shoreline and nothing else. _Don't think. Don't think._

Blackened kicked against him. "Fuck you, I almost had it! It was Mukhari's, dammit, god_dammit_, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you-- it was his, I swear it was, I swear it is! I swear it_ is!"_

* * *

Later Corosa learned that it was not a cross.

Just another necklace, one that glittered like silver and rusted like iron. Something Mukhari had worn ever since Blackened first met him, and nothing of emotional importance to him. Cheap, useless jewelry. But Blackened recognized it because it'd been flung into his face every morning for years, when Mukhari didn't have the strength so early in the morning to fling his bible instead.

It didn't wash up again.

* * *

**author**: I gues it was about time that something interesting happened, huh? ;;


End file.
